ft — n — n — 

REESE  LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

fy,  '*& 

Deceived  sftf/yis      •  T^T"- 

P       • 
Accession  No.    ^X5//6    .    Class  No. 


American 


EDITED   BY 


JOHN  T.  MORSE,  JR. 


.Imrnc.in  Statesmen 


SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 


BY 


ALBERT  BUSHNELL  HART 


CALIFOftf 


BOSTON  AND   NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 
re??,  Cambribfle 

1899 


Copyright,  1899, 
BY  ALBERT  BUSHNELL  HART. 


All  rights  reserved. 

7*7/6 


TO 

ALBERT   GAILLARD   HART 

ABOLITIONIST 

UNDERGROUND-RAILROAD    CONDUCTOR 
LIBERTY  MAN,  UNION  SOLDIER 

A  SON'S  GRATITUDE 


PREFACE 

THE  biographies  of  most  of  the  American  states 
men  of  the  Civil  War  have  been  written  by  their 
contemporaries,  who  could  supplement  research  by 
their  own  impressions  and  recollections.  The  work 
of  preparing  this  volume  and  estimating  the  char 
acter  and  services  of  Salmon  Portland  Chase  falls 
to  one  who  never  saw  him ;  but  though  dependent 
upon  written  and  printed  materials  and  the  remi 
niscences  of  others,  I  may  perhaps  claim  some 
special  interest  in  him  as  an  exponent  of  that 
Western  political  anti-slavery  movement  which 
early  stirred  my  blood  through  both  heredity  and 
training. 

The  life  of  Mr.  Chase  has  already  been  told  in 
three  published  biographies.  J.  T.  Trowbridge's 
"The  Ferry  Boy  and  the  Financier,"  although 
founded  on  valuable  data  furnished  by  Chase  him 
self,  is  a  romantic  tale  and  really  intended  as  a 
campaign  document.  E.  B.  Warden's  long  and 
elaborate  "  Life  of  Salmon  P.  Chase  "  is  uncritical 
and  unsatisfactory,  and  the  mass  of  material  which 
he  had  at  his  disposal  was  used  neither  with  per 
sonal  discrimination  nor  literary  judgment.  The 


viii  PREFACE 

third  and  best  biography,  by  J.  W.  Schuckers,  is 
written  with  historical  perspective,  but  lacks  the 
advantage  of  many  valuable  documents  which  have 
come  to  light  in  the  twenty-five  years  following  the 
death  of  Mr.  Chase. 

Perhaps,  therefore,  there  is  room  for  another 
briefer  biography,  in  which  Warden's  and  Schuck- 
ers's  works  may  be  used  as  collections  of  material, 
partly  accessible  in  no  other  form,  but  of  which  the 
chief  sources  shall  be  three  collections  of  manu 
scripts.  The  first  is  a  file  of  letters  to  Chase,  about 
eight  thousand  in  number,  running  from  1824  to 
1873,  for  the  use  of  which  I  am  indebted  to  the 
kind  permission  of  Mr.  Chase's  daughters,  Mrs. 
Kate  Chase  and  Mrs.  W.  S.  Hoyt,  and  to  the  cour 
tesy  of  Mr.  James  Ford  Rhodes,  who  recovered 
them  from  their  place  of  deposit.  The  second  col 
lection,  which  came  to  me  through  the  late  Mr. 
C.  S.  Hamlin  of  Williamsburg,  Virginia,  includes 
most  of  Chase's  original  diaries,  letter-books,  and 
memoranda,  together  with  three  autobiographical 
sketches,  written,  dictated,  or  inspired  by  him  at 
various  times.  The  third  set  is  a  considerable  body 
of  Mr.  Chase's  own  unpublished  letters,  kindly  lent 
by  many  persons,  but  especially  by  Major  Dwight 
Bannister  of  Ottumwa,  Iowa,  and  the  late  Mr. 
Edward  L.  Pierce  of  Milton,  Massachusetts,  who 
also  placed  at  my  disposal  the  letters  of  Chase  to 
Charles  Sumner. 


PREFACE  ix 

Besides  this  mass  of  contemporary  material,  pro 
fessional,  personal,  and  political,  I  have  freely 
drawn  on  the  few  publications  of  Chase,  on  the 
debates  and  reports  of  Congress,  and  on  the  works 
of  his  fellow  statesmen  and  their  biographers.  To 
Mr.  Charles  E.  Ozanne  I  am  much  indebted  for 
his  patient  and  discriminating  labor  in  deciphering 
and  analyzing  the  diaries  and  letters  of  Chase. 
Professor  James  Bradley  Thayer  and  Professor 
Charles  F.  Dunbar  have  done  me  the  great  kind 
ness  to  read  some  of  the  proofs,  and  to  make  some 
suggestions  on  the  chapters  relative  to  finance  and 
the  constitutional  decisions. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  volume  to  give  a 
detailed  account  of  Mr.  Chase's  private  life,  nor 
even  to  describe  fully  his  long,  eventful,  and  varied 
public  career,  but  rather  to  present  him  as  the 
central  figure  in  three  episodes  which  are  of  great 
historic  importance,  —  the  Western  political  anti- 
slavery  movement,  the  financial  measures  of  the 
Civil  War,  and  the  process  of  judicial  reconstruc 
tion.  The  biography  is  therefore  intended  to  be  a 
brief  history  of  these  three  epochs  as  seen  through 
the  activity  of  the  anti-slavery  leader,  the  financier, 
and  the  jurist. 

ALBERT  BUSHNELL  HART. 

CAMBRIDGE,  April  1,  1899. 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE. 

I.  EARLY  LIFE 1 

II.  THE  WESTERN  LAWYER  •  13 

III.  ANTI-SLAVERY  IN  OHIO    .        .        ...        .        .28 

IV.  THE  POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST      ....  54 
V.  THE  ANTI-SLAVERY  SENATOR         .        .        .        .103 

VI.  THE  REPUBLICAN  GOVERNOR  .  .  .  .  149 

VII.  THE  ELECTION  OF  1860 178 

VIII.  THE  CRITICAL  YEAR  1861 19^ 

IX.  TAXATION,  LOANS,  AND  LEGAL  TENDERS,  1862-63  230 

X.  SLAVERY  IN  THE  CIVIL  WAR 253 

XL  NATIONAL  BANKS  AND  THE  GOLD  QUESTION  .  274 

XII.  CHASE  AND  LINCOLN 290 

XIII.  THE  JUDICIAL  PROBLEM  OF  RECONSTRUCTION  .  319 

XIV.  THE  SECOND  STAGE  OF  RECONSTRUCTION        .        .  357 
XV.  FINANCIAL  AND  LEGAL  TENDER  DECISIONS       .  384' 

XVI.  THE  MAN 415 

INDEX 439 


SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 


CHAPTER  I 

EARLY   LIFE 

IN  the  course  of  the  sixty-five  years  of  his  life, 
from  1808  to  1873,  the  lot  of  Salmon  Portland 
Chase  was  cast  in  many  places.  In  his  boyhood 
his  family  lived  successively  in  two  towns  in  New 
Hampshire,  and  he  went  to  school  and  college  in 
three  others ;  as  a  lad  he  lived  in  Ohio,  first  in  a 
village  and  then  in  a  city  ;  his  earliest  manhood 
and  much  of  his  senatorial  term  he  spent  in  Wash 
ington  ;  his  professional  years,  in  Cincinnati ;  his 
four  years'  service  as  governor,  in  Columbus ;  and 
during  the  last  twelve  years  of  his  life  he  had  his 
permanent  home  in  or  near  Washington. 

Few  American  public  men  have  had  so  multi 
farious  an  experience,  and  few  illustrate  so  many 
types  of  national  character.  Chase  was  endowed 
with  a  New  England  tradition  of  learning  and 
statesmanship,  a  Western  knowledge  of  the  power 
of  organization,  and  a  national  insight  into  the 
meaning  of  the  American  system  of  government. 
His  abilities,  courage,  and  good  fortune  gave  him 


2  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

many  opportunities  to  show  his  powers :  as  leader 
of  the  political  abolitionists  of  Ohio  from  1841  to 
1849,  as  Ohio  senator  from  1849  to  1855,  as  gov 
ernor  of  Ohio  from  1856  to  1860,  as  secretary  of 
the  treasury  from  1861  to  1864,  and  as  chief  justice 
of  the  United  States  from  1864  to  1873,  he  moved 
in  the  midst  of  great  events,  which  he  helped  to 
make  and  to  modify. 

The  Chase  family  was  of  the  purest  American 
stock.  In  1660  Aquila  Chase,  an  Englishman, 
came  to  Newbury,  Massachusetts,  and  there  built 
and  commanded  a  ship.  He  left  a  son  Moses, 
from  whom  sprang  Daniel;  and  from  Daniel, 
Samuel,  who  married  Mary  Dudley.  Their  son 
Dudley  emigrated  in  1763  from  Sutton,  Massa 
chusetts,  with  his  wife,  Alice  Corbett,  and  seven 
children,  to  the  wilds  of  the  upper  Connecticut, 
and  helped  to  found  the  new  town  of  Cornish, 
named  by  the  Chases  for  the  English  town  or 
county  from  which  their  ancestors  sprang.  From 
the  loins  of  Dudley  sprang  nine  stout  sons,  of 
whom  Ithamar,  born  in  1763,  married  Janet  Rals 
ton,  daughter  of  a  Scotch  settler  of  Keene,  and  on 
January  13,  1808,  became  the  father  of  Salmon 
Portland  Chase. 

Few  families  have  given  to  their  communities 
such  a  proportion  of  energetic  leaders.  Chase's 
father,  Ithamar,  was  a  man  of  substance,  a  farmer 
and  small  manufacturer,  for  years  a  stout  Feder 
alist  and  member  of  the  governor's  council.  The 
most  noted  of  the  kindred  were  uncle  Dudley,  twice 


EARLY  LIFE  3 

a  United  States  senator,  and  uncle  Philander,  one 
of  the  most  striking  figures  in  the  development  of 
the  West.  The  boy,  Salmon,  was  heir  to  a  noble 
tradition  of  learning,  of  public  spirit,  and  of  use 
fulness.  Chase's  birthplace,  in  what  one  of  his 
friends  once  called  "  hill-ridden  New  Hampshire," 
lies  in  the  last  roll  of  the  mountain  billows  which 
sweep  from  Monadnock  and  Kearsage  down  west 
ward  to  the  fertile  river  bottoms  of  the  Connecti 
cut.  From  these  hill  and  valley  towns  have  sprung 
numerous  rugged  men  of  affairs,  who  have  made 
their  fortunes  in  other  States;  and  near  by  was 
Dartmouth  College,  nursery  of  many  great  men, 
and  among  them  of  Daniel  Webster,  with  whom 
Chase  once  touched  elbows  for  a  few  weeks  in  the 
Senate. 

About  1816  his  father  removed  to  Keene,  New 
Hampshire ;  but  when  the  boy  was  nine  years  old 
the  father  died,  leaving  to  his  widow  a  slender  pro 
perty  and  ten  children,  the  oldest  of  whom  was  a 
son  of  twenty-five  years.  The  boy's  education  had 
already  begun  in  1816  :  a  dame  school ;  a  district 
school  in  Keene ;  a  better  school  in  Windsor,  Ver 
mont,  where  he  began  Latin,  a  language  which  he 
always  liked  to  quote ;  a  tutor  in  Keene,  with  whom 
he  began  Greek,  —  under  such  training  passed  the 
years  till  1820.  At  this  time  an  influence  came  in 
which  probably  determined  Chase's  career :  Uncle 
Philander  appeared  as  the  good  genius  of  the  fam 
ily  and  took  the  boy  out  to  his  Ohio  frontier  bish 
opric  "  in  partibus."  Later  generations  know  a 


4  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

great  deal  about  the  ruder  side  of  the  religious 
development  of  the  West,  —  about  camp-meetings 
and  Peter  Cartwright ;  they  do  not  remember  the 
gentle,  more  refined,  yet  upbuilding  work  of  Bishop 
Chase  and  his  coadjutors.  He  was  poor  as  Jean 
Valjean's  bishop,  so  that  he  almost  envied  a  friend 
his  "  good  fat  living  of  $1000  a  year  as  clerk  in  the 
Navy  Department ;  "  he  had  an  official  ecclesiasti 
cal  income  which  did  not  pay  his  postage ;  yet  he 
was  a  man  who  knew  how  to  unite  the  secular  with 
the  religious,  to  carry  on  farms  and  mills  side  by 
side  with  his  school  and  his  churches. 

In  the  bishop's  school  at  Worthington,  near 
Columbus,  the  boy  simultaneously  did  farm  work 
and  studied  Greek.  Two  years  passed  in  monoto 
nous  life,  for  which  the  boy  had  no  love.  In  1822 
Bishop  Chase  was  appointed  president  of  Cincin 
nati  College.  Evidently  the  requirements  of  Cin 
cinnati  College  were  not  exacting,  for  the  fifteen- 
year-old  lad  quickly  became  a  sophomore.  The 
bishop's  new  activity,  however,  gave  him  so  little 
satisfaction  that  he  resigned  at  the  end  of  a  year, 
and  young  Chase  returned  to  his  New  England 
home  in  Keene.  He  never  expressed  any  enthusi 
asm  over  his  boyhood  experience  in  the  West,  and 
the  only  important  direct  effect  from  it  that  can  be 
traced  is  that  it  probably  led  him  later  to  settle  in 
Ohio. 

On  his  return  to  New  Hampshire,  at  sixteen 
years  of  age,  the  boy  forthwith  became  a  man,  for 
he  began  to  support  himself,  at  least  in  part.  One 


EARLY  LIFE  5 

of  many  children,  and  much  away  from  home,  Chase 
felt  his  mother's  influence  less  than  most  boys ; 
but  her  shrewd  and  affectionate  character  is  re 
vealed  in  some  letters  of  the  period  written  to  him. 
She  struggled  hard  to  get  her  children  started  in 
life,  and  in  1824  put  Salmon  into  Dartmouth  Col 
lege.  Entering  as  junior,  he  taught  in  country 
schools  during  the  long  winter  vacations,  and  in 
1826  he  was  graduated. 

Dartmouth  College  was  a  wholesome  school,  in 
which  young  men  studied  a  little  classics,  mathe 
matics,  and  belles-lettres,  and  got  good  from  each 
other  and  from  the  characters  of  their  instructors. 
A  fellow  collegian  of  Chase  said  of  it  in  1826 : 
"  We  meddled  little  with  the  history,  government, 
or  politics  of  our  country :  I  think  not  enough  to 
prepare  us  for  the  active  side  of  life."  Certainly 
none  of  Chase's  college  teachers  seem  to  have  im 
pressed  him,  and  of  President  Tyler  there  is  not  a 
mention  in  his  reminiscences.  Chase  was  only  a 
moderate  student  and  took  no  high  rank  in  college. 
Of  his  private  reading,  the  "  Mysteries  of  Udolpho  " 
was  all  that  stood  in  his  memory  in  after  life.  On 
the  whole,  his  intellectual  advantages  were  unusual 
for  that  time,  and  in  the  end  he  got  an  excellent 
education,  though  it  came  chiefly  from  men  and 
books  after  he  had  left  college ;  at  least,  throughout 
his  life  he  had  the  enjoyment  of  academic  brother 
hood  with  men  everywhere  who  had  been  stamped 
with  the  same  collegiate  training  as  his  own. 

The  next  step  in  his  life  was  of  especial  conse- 


6  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

quence,  for  it  was  to  make  a  cultivated  man  of  the 
world  out  of  the  country  boy.  When  he  graduated 
he  had  already  made  up  his  mind  to  study  law ; 
but  he  could  no  longer  accept  his  mother's  sacri 
fices,  and  the  readiest  way  to  earn  his  living  for  the 
time  was  to  teach  school.  Uncle  Philander,  like  a 
genius  of  the  lamp,  appeared  at  the  right  moment 
to  give  him  guidance  and  letters  of  introduction ; 
and  Chase  went  to  Washington.  There  he  had  no 
better  resource  than  to  announce  "  a  select  classical 
school,"  for  which  but  one  pupil  was  entered.  In 
discouragement  he  applied  to  his  uncle,  Senator 
Dudley  Chase,  to  get  him  a  government  clerkship, 
and  received  a  warning  never  to  enter  government 
service,  with  the  offer  of  "fifty  cents  to  buy  a 
spade."  The  good  bishop's  letters  were  more  ser 
viceable,  however,  for  through  his  influence  Chase 
became  the  proprietor  of  an  established  boys'  school, 
and  for  three  years  he  was  a  schoolmaster. 

By  this  time  some  of  the  habits  of  Chase's  life 
were  forming:  fondness  for  good  company;  love 
of  reading;  a  habit  of  letter-writing;  interest  in 
affairs;  a  share  in  the  financial  burdens  of  his 
family ;  acquaintance  with  public  men ;  and  the 
keeping  of  a  diary.  He  even  spoke  to  some  friends 
of  "a  wonderful  vision  of  meeting  in  the  halls 
of  legislation."  Chase's  later  life  was  distinctly 
serious,  for  he  was  then  absorbed  in  the  moral  side 
of  existence,  and  in  the  hard,  practical  work  of  so 
cial  and  political  organization.  These  three  years 
in  Washington,  however,  have  an  altogether  differ- 


EARLY   LIFE  7 

ent  tone ;  the  young  man's  writings  are  light  and 
almost  frivolous.  Perhaps  the  episode  of  Parisian 
gayety  in  a  Puritan  life  was  chiefly  due  to  the 
family  of  Chase's  patron,  nominal  preceptor,  and 
friend,  William  Wirt  of  Virginia,  attorney-general 
of  the  United  States.  In  Wirt's  family  were  sev 
eral  lively  daughters,  whose  Southern  archness  and 
banter  were  very  agreeable  to  the  young  Yankee. 
In  praise  of  two  of  them  he  published  a  poem, 
which  was  no  worse  than  the  stock  material  of  the 
annuals  of  the  day,  and  closed  with  fashionable 
gloom  :  — 

"  Even  so  — 

I  thought,  and  with  the  thought  a  heavy  sigh 
Came  from  my  inmost  heart  —  must  fade  away 
All  that  the  earth  of  the  beautiful  inherits, 
And  so  must  these  bright  creatures  pass  from  earth." 

In  the  warmth  of  this  delightful  family,  this 
"pure  and  gentle  and  refined  and  cultivated  cir 
cle,"  the  young  man  basked,  and  it  was  a  keen 
disappointment  to  him  when  they  left  Washington 
in  1829,  at  the  end  of  Wirt's  term  of  office.  All  his 
life  long  he  remembered  Mr.  Wirt,  "  one  of  the 
handsomest  men  and  one  of  the  completest  gentle 
men  .of  his  time ;  "  and  in  the  furious  debates  of 
1854  in  the  Senate,  Chase  paid  him  a  tribute  as  a 
type  of  the  lovable  slaveholder. 

Through  the  Wirts,  his  uncle  Dudley,  and  Henry 
Clay,  Chase  entered  into  the  pleasant  society  of  the 
national  capital.  The  town  was  still  raw,  ugly, 
and  unclean  ;  but  it  was  a  period  of  much  refined 


8  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

hospitality,  and  he  was  welcomed  by  members  of 
the  cabinet  and  at  presidential  levees.  Thus  he 
went  to  Secretary  Porter's,  where,  as  he  notes, 
Daniel  Webster  tossed  off  a  full  glass  of  whiskey, 
supposing  it  to  be  wine ;  and  he  was  invited  to 
"  the  scene  of  ceremonious  frivolity  at  Mr.  Clay's." 
The  picture  of  Washington  society  thus  drawn  in 
a  contemporary  diary  is  on  the  whole  pleasing,  and 
makes  one  wish  that  Mrs.  Trollope  could  have  had 
access  to  the  Wirt  household. 

Chase's  record  of  the  political  conditions  of  the 
time  is  interesting,  and  especially  important  be 
cause  it  covers  the  transition  period  from  Adams 
to  Jackson,  as  seen  by  the  young  schoolmaster. 
An  early  entry  in  his  diary,  under  the  date  of 
January  28,  1829,  is  as  follows  :  — 

"  As  Mr.  Adams  was  soon  to  go  out  of  office,  his 
last  Drawing-room  was  numerously  attended.  .  .  . 
The  whole  avenue  to  the  palace-door  was  filled  with 
carriages  of  those  who  had  arrived  before  us,  and 
we  had  only  the  meagre  satisfaction  of  not  being 
the  last  of  the  train.  Nearly  fifteen  minutes 
elapsed  before  we  were  able  to  reach  the  door. 
At  length  we  were  set  at  liberty  and  entered  the 
house.  An  immense  crowd  was  present.  Three 
rooms  were  full  of  guests.  Music  was  heard  in  the 
great,  and  yet  unfurnished,  East-Room,  inviting  the 
dancers  to  engage  in  the  cotillion.  Many  accepted 
the  invitation,  and  soon  many  light  feet  were  trip 
ping  over  the  floor.  At  ten  o'clock,  the  dance 
broke  off,  and  the  supper  room  was  thrown  open. 


EARLY  LIFE  9 

Long  tables  were  spread  in  a  spacious  apartment, 
covered  with  everything  that  could  please  the  eye  or 
gratify  the  taste.  They  were  soon  surrounded  by 
a  crowd  by  no  means  reluctant  to  disburden  them 
of  their  load.  As  each  company  was  satisfied  and 
departed,  others  filled  the  vacant  places,  and  the 
banquet  did  not  end  until  after  eleven  o'clock. 
Then  the  dance  was  resumed  for  a  little  while, 
until,  one  by  one,  the  gay  group  diminished, 
when  the  music  played  'Home,  Sweet  Home,'  as 
a  finale,  and  the  pleasures  of  the  evening  were 
ended." 

It  was  the  fortune  of  the  young  observer,  who 
was  of  course  an  Adams  man,  to  see  the  first  recep 
tion  of  another  President,  and  to  be  shocked  at  the 
uproar  in  the  White  House  after  the  inauguration 
of  Jackson.  A  few  weeks  later  he  notes  that  a 
"  more  savage  spirit  breathes  in  the  administration, 
and  as  a  natural  consequence  distrust  has  come  in 
place  of  confidence."  Of  Jackson  himself  Chase 
wrote,  "  In  his  manners,  he  is  graceful  and  agree 
able,  and  much  excels  his  predecessor  in  the  art  of 
winning  golden  opinions  from  all  sorts  of  men." 
Van  Buren,  whom  Chase  was  ardently  to  support 
for  President  in  1848,  seemed  to  him,  in  1829, 
"  cold,  selfish,  base,  and  faithless.  May  he  never," 
he  exclaims,  "  reach  the  golden  reward  to  which  he 
so  vehemently  aspires."  Chase  notes  the  universal 
belief  that  Van  Buren  was  really  responsible  for 
the  policy  of  removals  from  office  ;  and  he  relates 
that  one  of  his  own  acquaintance  was  informed  by 


10  SALMON   PORTLAND  CHASE 

Jackson  that  the  President  could  not  conscien 
tiously  remove  an  incumbent  in  order  to  make  a 
place  for  the  applicant. 

Chase's  opinion  of  several  other  public  men  de 
serves  record.  He  thought  it  strange  that  John 
Randolph  was  "allowed  to  exercise  his  fantastic 
humors  in  the  House  without  check  and  almost 
without  rebuke  —  an  aristocrat  at  heart,  and  disor 
dered  in  intellect,  the  scorn  of  the  wise ;  the  laugh 
ing-stock  of  the  gay,  and  the  abhorrence  of  the 
good."  Calhoun  was  "  an  unfortunate  politician, 
yet  a  very  good  man.  Few  men  in  our  party  are 
gifted  with  more  splendid  abilities  —  all  that  he 
does  and  utters  and  imagines  is  marked  by  his 
grand,  characteristic,  impetuous  energy."  When 
he  heard  Webster  for  the  first  time,  in  an  argu 
ment  before  the  Supreme  Court,  he  observed : 
"  He  states  his  case  with  great  clearness,  and 
draws  his  inferences  with  exceeding  sagacity.  His 
language  is  rich  and  copious  ;  his  manner  dignified 
and  impressive  ;  his  voice  deep  and  sonorous ;  and 
his  sentiments  high  and  often  sublime.  He  argues 
generally  from  general  principles,  seldom  descend 
ing  into  minute  analysis  where  intricacy  is  apt  to 
embarrass  and  analogy  to  mislead.  He  is  remark 
able  for  strength  rather  than  dexterity,  and  would 
easier  rend  an  oak  than  untie  a  knot.  If  I  could 
carry  my  faith  in  the  possibility  of  all  things  to 
labor,  so  far  as  to  suppose  that  any  degree  of 
industry  would  enable  me  to  reach  his  height,  how 
day  and  night  should  testify  of  my  toils !  " 


EARLY  LIFE  11 

While  thus  interested  in  political  events  and 
public  men,  young  Chase  was  learning  his  own 
tastes  and  was  taking  in  the  social  world  about 
him.  He  listened  to  concerts  and  felt  sure  that  he 
understood  why  he  enjoyed  them.  Tie  hobnobbed 
with  artists.  He  visited  the  first  completed  two 
miles  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad,  and 
mused  on  the  new  system,  which  "  removes  the 
Alleghanies,"  and  "makes  Cincinnati  and  Balti 
more  neighboring  cities."  Sometimes  he  indulged 
also  in  the  natural  dreams  of  a  gifted  youth. 
"  Knowledge  may  yet  be  gained,"  he  writes,  "and 
golden  reputation.  I  may  yet  enjoy  the  conscious 
ness  of  having  lived  not  in  vain.  Future  scenes  of 
triumph  may  be  mine." 

Already  the  road  to  distinction  had  been  chosen, 
for  in  1827  he  began  to  study  law,  ostensibly  as  a 
student  of  William  Wirt,  but  really  as  a  neglect 
ful  private  reader.  Neither  his  diary  nor  his  later 
reminiscences  conceal  the  fact  that  his  law  studies 
were  scanty,  and  that  his  preceptor  Wirt  had  asked 
him  only  one  question  in  the  two  years  of  their 
relation.  Indeed,  Chase  frankly  admits  that  "  very 
seldom  had  any  candidate  for  admission  to  the  bar 
presented  himself  with -a  slenderer  stock  of  learn 
ing  ; "  and  after  the  ordeal  was  over  he  lamented 
that  the  cramming  process  "  had  given  strength  to  a 
habit  of  superficial  reading."  When  he  presented 
himself  for  admission  to  the  bar,  kindly  Justice 
Cranch  demurred,  either  at  the  weakness  of  the 
preparation  or  at  the  shortness  of  the  time  of 


12  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

study  ;  but  he  gave  way,  and  thus,  on  December 
14,  1829,  Chase  became  a  lawyer. 

With  his  admission  to  the  bar  closed  the  first 
period  of  Chase's  life.  In  twenty-two  years  he  had 
developed  a  handsome  though  still  awkward  per 
son,  an  observant  mind,  a  habit  of  reflection,  and 
a  clear  though  still  somewhat  artificial  style.  In 
this  formative  period  are  seen  already  the  founda 
tions  of  the  strong  and  versatile  character  of  the 
later  man.  He  worked  hard,  if  spasmodically  ;  he 
read  a  little  ;  he  showed  perseverance,  address,  and 
devotion  to  principle;  he  held  himself  well  in  hand; 
and  his  most  intimate  correspondence  shows  him 
to  have  been  upright  without  priggishness.  He 
had  had  opportunities  of  education  and  culture 
such  as  came  to  few  young  men  of  that  period  ;  he 
had  been  among  men  who  could  impress  his  char 
acter.  Out  of  it  all  he  had  brought  a  wholesome 
sense  of  his  own  deficiencies,  expressed  in  somewhat 
exaggerated  self-examination  in  the  closing  entry  of 
his  diary  for  1829.  "I  am  almost  twenty-two,  and 
have,  as  yet,  attained  but  the  threshold  of  know 
ledge.  I  have  formed  few  settled  opinions,  and 
have  examined  but  few  subjects.  The  night  has 
seldom  found  me  much  advanced  beyond  the  sta 
tion  I  occupied  in  the  morning,  and  the  end  of  the 
year  has  at  length  come  round  and  finds  me  almost 
in  the  very  spot  I  was  in  at  its  commencement.  I 
have  learned  little,  and  have  forgotten  much,  and, 
really,  to  conclude  of  the  future  from  the  past,  I 
almost  despair  of  making  any  figure  in  the  world." 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   WESTERN  LAWYER 

ACCORDING  to  the  statement  of  Chase  himself, 
the  argument  which  induced  Justice  Cranch  to 
admit  him  to  the  bar  was  his  declaration :  "  I  have 
made  all  my  arrangements  to  go  to  the  Western 
country  and  practice  law."  As  early  as  July,  1826, 
while  he  was  still  in  college,  a  friend  in  Cincinnati 
wrote,  advising  him  against  a  place  where  there 
were  "  about  sixty  lawyers,  about  thirty  ministers, 
and  doctors  without  number."  In  February,  1830, 
Judge  Burnet,  of  Cincinnati,  senator  from  Ohio, 
rather  faintly  counseled  him  to  settle  in  Cincinnati, 
with  the  remark :  "  On  the  whole  it  offers  to  you 
stronger  inducements  than  any  other  place  in  the 
West."  With  large  expectations  and  a  little  money 
Chase  left  Washington  in  March,  1830,  to  make 
his  fortune  in  the  golden  West. 

The  choice  of  Cincinnati  as  the  place  for  the 
development  of  a  young  and  ill-trained  lawyer  was 
of  course  influenced  by  Chase's  Ohio  relatives  and 
boyhood  experiences,  but  he  sought  it  chiefly  be 
cause  he  believed  that  it  offered  the  largest  oppor 
tunity  for  brains  and  ambition.  It  was  no  longer 
a  rude  frontier  town,  but  the  largest  city  in  the 


14  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

West,  apparently  destined  to  be  the  metropolis  of 
the  Mississippi  Valley,  on  the  axis  of  Eastern  and 
Western  commerce,  and  a  terminus  for  important 
and  growing  trade  from  North  to  South.  The 
Cumberland  road  to  Wheeling  and  Zanesville  and 
the  road  to  Pittsburg  across  southern  Pennsylvania 
were  the  great  Western  highways  of  the  time  ;  and 
from  Pittsburg  and  Wheeling  navigation  reached 
to  Cincinnati,  St.  Louis,  St.  Paul,  and  New  Or 
leans.  The  Northwest  was  then  an  undeveloped 
section,  far  behind  the  Ohio  River  settlements. 

Of  all  the  cities  of  the  West  the  most  individual 
and  the  most  foreign  was  Cincinnati.  On  the  con 
tracted  plain  above  the  high-water  mark  lay  the 
business  district ;  the  rest  of  the  city  and  suburbs 
straggled  up  over  the  confused  hills,  everywhere 
flanked  by  walls  of  squared  limestone.  Among  the 
twenty-five  thousand  people  of  Cincinnati  in  1830 
were  to  be  found  four  different  elements,  which 
were  slowly  and  unwillingly  combining  in  a  com 
mon  life  :  the  Southerner,  the  New  Englander  and 
Middle  State  man,  the  foreigner,  and  the  negro. 
The  Southern  element  was  on  the  whole  the  most 
numerous,  for  all  the  lower  counties  of  Ohio,  Indi 
ana,  and  Illinois  had  a  large  number  of  Southern 
settlers,  and  in  Cincinnati  itself  there  were  many 
people  of  distinctly  Southern  habits  of  mind.  In 
deed,  in  many  respects  Cincinnati  was  a  Southern 
city  on  free  soil:  the  Southern  buyer  gladdened 
the  heart  of  the  merchant ;  the  Southern  traveler 
and  his  family  took  the  best  rooms  in  the  hotels ; 


THE   WESTERN  LAWYER  15 

and  in  times  of  crisis  Southern  sympathy  for  slavery 
was  visible  in  the  newspapers.  New  Englanders 
were  numerous  and  contended  for  their  familiar 
standards  of  education  and  intellectual  life  ;  but 
they  were  not  here,  as  in  northern  Ohio,  the  domi 
nant  element.  Foreigners  had  begun  to  straggle 
in ;  and  Cincinnati  became  an  early  place  of  set 
tlement  for  Germans,  through  whom,  about  1825, 
the  culture  of  the  grape  was  introduced.  The 
negro  population  was  only  about  one  fifteenth  of 
the  whole,  but  it  was  a  source  of  some  perplexities, 
for  besides  the  influx  of  negroes  from  other  North 
ern  communities,  free  to  shift  for  themselves,  there 
was  an  infusion  of  freed  slaves  from  Kentucky,  and 
even  of  runaways. 

Commercially  Cincinnati  was  a  place  of  growing 
importance.  The  artery  which  kept  the  city  pro 
sperous  was  the  Ohio  River,  which  in  modern  rail 
way  circles  is  said  to  be  shallow  and  uncertain,  but 
in  1830  was  a  natural  street,  for  which  pious  trav 
elers  thanked  the  Almighty,  even  though  a  voyage 
from  Pittsburg  to  Cincinnati  might  take  a  week. 
Besides  having  the  direct  river  trade,  Cincinnati 
was  already  becoming  the  centre  of  a  rich  coun 
tryside,  and  the  exchange  point  for  Northern  and 
Southern  products.  On  the  north,  however,  the 
means  of  communication  were  still  so  poor  that 
even  so  late  as  1839  a  traveler  leaving  Cincinnati 
on  Thursday  reported  that  he  arrived  at  Colum 
bus,  a  hundred  miles  away,  on  Monday.  Canals 
from  Portsmouth  to  Cleveland  and  from  Cincin- 


16  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

nati  to  Dayton  were  now  almost  completed ;  but 
not  till  the  railroad  came,  in  the  early  fifties,  was 
Cincinnati  really  united  to  the  shores  of  Lake  Erie. 
Toward  the  south,  however,  it  was  otherwise.  The 
navigable  branches  of  the  Ohio  —  the  Kanawha, 
Licking,  Kentucky,  Cumberland,  and  Tennessee  — 
gave  access  to  Kentucky  and  the  country  farther 
south ;  and  Cincinnati  was  already  becoming  a 
favorite  supply  point  for  provisions,  especially  for 
hog  products.  There  was  also  some  manufactur 
ing,  —  in  cotton,  lumber,  and  machinery,  —  which 
cheap  coal  was  later  to  develop. 

The  social  life  of  Cincinnati  has  been  much  mis 
represented  by  Mrs.  Trollope's  "Domestic  Man 
ners  of  the  Americans."  However  accurately  that 
author  described  the  life  which  she  saw,  the  dia 
ries  and  letters  of  Chase,  then  living  in  the  city, 
show  that  there  was  much  which  she  did  not  see. 
To  the  mind  of  the  cultivated  Englishwoman,  dirty 
streets,  tobacco  chewing,  and  the  coarseness  of  a 
frontier  town  seemed  incompatible  with  refined 
society ;  but  such  a  society  there  was,  and  Chase 
at  once  found  a  share  in  it.  In  a  few  months  he 
was  the  welcome  friend  of  the  Burnets  and  the 
Longworths,  the  social  leaders  in  the  city. 

The  first  duty  of  the  newcomer  was  to  establish 
himself  in  his  profession,  and  within  four  years  and 
a  half  he  had  taken  his  place  as  one  of  the  best 
and  busiest  lawyers  in  Cincinnati.  During  the 
first  two  years,  however,  progress  was  very  slow. 
He  was  admitted  to  the  Ohio  bar  in  June,  1830, 


THE   WESTERN   LAWYER  17 

and  in  September  set  up  his  own  office.  He  after 
ward  said  that  his  first  client  paid  him  half  a 
dollar  for  drawing  a  deed,  and  the  second  client 
borrowed  the  half  dollar  and  decamped. 

It  is  a  proof  of  the  strength  of  Character  of  the 
young  man  that  this  period  of  growth  into  his  pro 
fession  is  also  the  period  of  greatest  intellectual 
progress  in  his  whole  life :  he  read,  he  reflected,  he 
analyzed,  he  pondered  upon  religion,  he  lectured, 
he  wrote  articles,  he  projected  a  literary  magazine, 
and  he  began  the  only  formal  publication  of  his 
whole  career.  Chase  was  throughout  his  life  a 
great  reader,  though  in  a  rather  haphazard  fashion. 
But  to  read  and  reflect  was  not  enough  for  the 
active  young  man  ;  hence  in  the  fall  of  1830  he 
took  a  large  part  in  founding  the  Cincinnati  Ly 
ceum,  a  system  of  popular  lectures  much  like  that 
of  the  modern  "Institutes"  in  the  great  cities,  to 
which  he  proposed  to  add  the  illustration  of  sci 
entific  discoveries  by  simple  experiments  ;  but  only 
that  part  of  the  scheme  which  provided  for  lectures 
was  carried  out. 

Of  these  lectures,  Chase  himself  delivered  four ; 
and  he  was  thus  led  directly  to  his  first  literary 
venture,  the  publication  in  the  "  North  American 
Review "  of  two  of  his  lectures,  "  The  Life  and 
Character  of  Henry  Brougham  "  (July,  1831),  and 
"Effects  of  Machinery"  (January,  1832).  The 
impulse  to  this  latter  article  appears  in  an  entry  in 
his  diary  of  March  2,  1831:  "Perused  an  article 
in  the  Ed.  Rev.  on  the  effects  of  Machinery  and 


18  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

accumulation  and  about  50  pages  of  the  Wealth 
of  Nations  and  about  a  dozen  pages  of  Say."  The 
article  is  a  good  wholesome  statement  of  the  ortho 
dox  doctrine  of  the  real  advance  resulting  from 
machinery,  with  a  special  statement  of  those  Ameri 
can  conditions  which  take  away  the  force  of  the 
argument  against  factory  towns.  "  Machinery," 
says  Chase,  "  substitutes  bodies  of  iron  with  souls 
of  steam  to  do  the  work  of  living  men." 

From  contributor  to  editor  was  a  step  which 
Chase  longed  to  take,  and  in  1832  he  was  busily 
writing  to  his  friends  in  behalf  of  a  scheme  for 
a  "  Western  Quarterly  Eeview."  The  plan  was 
heroic,  in  a  region  where  there  were  almost  no  book 
sellers,  but  it  was  not  unexampled.  Timothy  Flint 
had  for  a  year  or  two  been  issuing  his  "  Western 
Monthly  Review,"  and  James  Hall  at  Vandalia 
was  editing  an  "  Illinois  Magazine  and  Western 
Souvenir."  Some  effort  was  made  to  consolidate 
these  ventures,  but  the  project  lacked  support,  and 
the  only  result  seems  to  have  been  that  Hall  gave 
the  name  of  "  Western  Monthly  Magazine  "  to  his 
periodical  in  its  later  form  of  1833-36. 

The  only  literary  careers  in  the  thirties  in  which 
a  man  could  make  a  living  in  the  West  were 
journalism  and  the  writing  of  law  books.  For 
newspaper  work  Chase  had  some  early  inclination, 
and  to  some  of  the  local  papers  he  occasionally 
sent  short  unsigned  articles  or  editorials.  Law 
books,  however,  came  more  directly  in  the  line  of 
his  profession ;  hence  in  September,  1832,  he 


THE   WESTERN  LAWYER  19 

formed  the  project  of  publishing  a  collection  of  the 
laws  of  Ohio,  for  the  use  of  lawyers  and  courts. 
The  state  judges  took  an  interest  in  the  plan,  and 
lent  him  their  aid ;  and  he  reprinted  in  his  three 
volumes  all  the  public  acts  in  the  four  volumes  of 
"adopted  laws"  for  the  Northwest  Territory,  the 
four  volumes  of  territorial  enactments,  and  the 
thirty-one  volumes  of  state  laws.  He  added  abun 
dant  notes  and  references,  and  his  "  Laws  "  at  once 
became  the  standard  edition.  Unfortunately,  the 
legislature  would  buy  only  a  hundred  and  fifty 
copies,  and  Chase's  rewards  were  probably  not  over 
a  thousand  dollars  for  his  immense  labor ;  but  the 
work  at  once  gave  him  a  solid  reputation  through 
out  the  West.  Chancellor  Kent  and  Justice  Story, 
in  personal  letters  of  much  warmth,  testified  to  its 
value  and  its  learning. 

From  the  beginning  it  had  been  Chase's  intention 
to  prefix  to  the  "  Laws  "  a  brief  historical  sketch 
of  Ohio,  and  the  resulting  forty  pages  remain  one 
of  the  best  accounts  of  the  early  constitutional 
history  of  the  Northwest  Territory  and  of  the  com 
monwealth  of  Ohio.  The  historical  matter  is 
sound  ;  there  are  references  to  some  sources,  and  a 
successful  effort  to  choose  the  really  interesting  and 
significant  events.  The  Ordinance  of  1787  had 
already  been  the  subject  of  a  long  disquisition  in 
Chase's  diary,  in  July,  1831,  and  his  careful  dis 
cussion  of  it  in  his  historical  sketch  did  much  to 
call  attention  to  its  historical  importance.  The 
history  is  a  plain,  straightforward  story,  with  little 


20  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

comment,  for  the  editor  avoided  political  and  con 
troversial  questions ;  hence  the  book  gives  little 
v  indication  of  Chase's  opinions.  One  of  the  few 
subjects  on  which  the  future  governor  of  Ohio 
takes  ground,  however,  is  the  administration  of  St. 
Clair  in  the  Northwest,  which  afforded  him  oppor 
tunity  for  expressing  his  satisfaction  that  "  the  veto 
power,  that  anomaly  in  republican  government,  is 
not  recognized  by  the  Constitution  of  the  State  of 
Ohio."  As  a  whole,  the  history  shows  Chase  full 
of  the  spirit  of  historical  investigation,  and  pos 
sessed  of  an  unusual  power  of  statement.  He  had 
the  qualities  of  a  good  historian,  —  truth,  patience, 
accuracy,  impartiality,  discernment,  an  interesting 
method,  and  a  readable  style. 

Soon  after  the  publication  of  the  Ohio  statutes, 
Chase  married.  The  frank  diary  of  a  susceptible 
young  man  of  twenty-two  is  certain  to  record  much 
to  vex  the  same  man  at  forty  and  to  amuse  him  at 
sixty.  Chase  was  fond  of  the  ladies,  and  liked  to 
call  on  them  and  to  tell  his  diary  what  he  thought 
of  them.  A  frequently  recurring  name  is  that  of 
Catherine  Jane  Garniss,  a  young  lady  about  three 
years  Chase's  junior.  After  a  leisurely  courtship 
they  were  married,  March  4, 1834 ;  on  December  1, 
1835,  she  died,  leaving  him  a  little  girl,  who  lived 
only  four  years  longer.  To  the  very  end  of  his  life 
the  statesman  recalled  with  tenderness  this  wife  of 
his  youth,  who  seemed  so  well  suited  to  be  his  help 
meet.  The  desolation  of  the  young  father  inten 
sified  a  strong  religious  feeling,  to  which  he  gave 


THE   WESTERN   LAWYER  21 

frequent  expression  in  public  and  in  his  diary  :  the 
Puritan  habit  of  withdrawal  and  meditation  awoke 
in  him ;  he  constantly  reviewed  his  own  life,  up 
braided  his  few  failings,  and  set  himself  forward 
in  a  new  effort.  Sincerity  and  uprightness  speak 
out  from  the  anguish  of  these  months. 

Four  years  later,  September  26,  1839,  Chase 
married  his  second  wife,  Eliza  Ann  Smith,  of  Cin 
cinnati,  then  a  girl  of  eighteen.  Of  the  three  chil 
dren  whom  she  bore  to  him,  his  daughter  Kate 
(later  Mrs.  Sprague)  was  the  only  one  who  lived ; 
and  Mrs.  Chase  was  taken  from  him  September 
29,  1845.  She  was  a  refined  woman,  who  had 
much  influence  in  moderating  in  her  husband  a 
tendency  to  harshness  and  aggressiveness  ;  but  it 
is  evident  that  she  had  little  connection  with  the 
exciting  professional  and  political  career  in  which 
Chase  was  busied  during  their  whole  married  life. 

A  third  marriage  took  place  November  6,  1846, 
with  Sarah  Bella  Dunlop  Ludlow.  This  connec 
tion  was  in  many  respects  different  from  the  others. 
In  the  first  place,  Miss  Ludlow  belonged  to  one  of 
the  best-known  families  in  Cincinnati,  her  grand 
father,  Israel  Ludlow,  having  been  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  city  ;  by  the  marriage  of  his  wife's 
sister  to  Randall  Hunt,  of  New  Orleans,  Chase 
gained  a  useful  insight  into  Southern  conditions ; 
and  his  wife  brought  some  property  with  her.  Mrs. 
Chase  was  a  woman  of  much  dignity  and  force  of 
character,  showing  a  beautiful  tenderness  toward 
her  husband,  and  sharing  in  his  public  life,  though 


22  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

much  of  the  time  too  ill  to  go  about  with  him.  She 
also  brought  him  into  close  relations  with  her  own 
anti-slavery  family,  and  especially  with  her  uncle 
by  marriage,  John  McLean,  later  an  associate  jus 
tice  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court.  Two 
children  were  born  to  them,  of  whom  the  only  one 
that  lived  was  Jeanette  Ralston  (later  Mrs.  Hoyt). 
On  June  13,  1852,  Chase  was  again  bereft  of  his 
wife,  having  thus  in  seventeen  years  stood  at  the 
biers  of  three  wives  and  five  children  ;  thencefor 
ward  he  lived  a  widower  to  the  end. 

While  the  sorrows  of  life  thus  descended  upon 
Chase,  his  professional  reputation  steadily  in 
creased.  In  April,  1832,  he  was  received  into  part 
nership  on  equal  terms  by  General  Edward  King, 
and  Timothy  Walker,  afterward  author  of  the  well- 
known  "  American  Law."  Seven  months  later 
Chase  entered  into  a  partnership  with  D.  J.  Cas- 
well,  the  importance  of  which  lay  in  the  fact  that 
Caswell  was  solicitor  for  the  Cincinnati  agency  of 
the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  and  divided  this 
valuable  employment  with  Chase.  In  July,  1834, 
he  withdrew  from  Caswell,  retaining  the  business 
of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  on  his  own  ac 
count  ;  and  in  November  he  was  made  the  solicitor 
of  the  Lafayette  Bank.  These  important  trusts 
gave  him  so  lucrative  a  practice  that  his  literary 
pursuits  were  gradually  thrust  into  the  background, 
and  finally  ceased. 

The  estimates  of  Chase  as  a  lawyer  differ  widely : 
to  enthusiastic  anti-slavery  men  he  was  a  great 


THE   WESTERN   LAWYER  23 

lawyer  because  he  made  out  so  plausible  a  con 
stitutional  argument  on  their  side ;  to  the  practi 
tioner  he  seemed  a  very  able  and  effective  attorney, 
but  by  no  means  at  the  head  of  the  Ohio  bar.  He 
prepared  his  cases  with  great  care,  sometimes  mak 
ing  briefs  on  both  his  own  and  his  opponent's  side. 
Once  in  court,  he  made  an  impression  by  the  force 
of  his  clear  statement,  but  not  by  any  impassioned 
appeal ;  in  fact,  he  is  said  to  have  broken  down  on 
his  first  important  argument ;  and  he  never  had 
the  art  of  winning  over  a  reluctant  jury.  His 
learning  was  not  great  in  this  period  of  his  life, 
and  he  depended  on  luminous  principles  rather 
than  on  authorities.  As  one  of  his  friends  puts  it, 
"  Chase  was  not  a  great  lawyer,  but  a  great  man 
who  had  a  knowledge  of  law." 

To  carry  on  his  multifarious  practice,  Chase 
early  felt  the  need  of  a  partner  who  should  take 
office  work  and  detail.  He  first  associated  himself 
with  Samuel  Eels,  in  the  firm  of  Chase  &  Eels  ;  but 
in  1838  they  separated,  and  Chase  took  up  Flamen 
Ball,  a  man  who  had  failed  in  business,  had  then 
studied  law  in  Chase's  office,  and  was  now  made 
a  partner.  As  Chase  from  this  time  on  was  much 
away  from  home  on  legal  or  political  business,  Ball 
took  most  of  the  office  work,  for  which  he  had 
some  talent ;  but  he  was  much  inferior  to  Chase 
in  abilities,  character,  and  habits,  and  at  times  was 
very  neglectful  of  the  firm's  business.  In  1848, 
when  Chase  went  to  Washington,  Horace  Wells 
was  taken  into  the  new  firm  of  Chase,  Ball  & 


24  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

Wells ;  in  February,  1849,  George  Hoadly  was 
made  a  partner,  under  the  firm  name  of  Chase, 
Ball  &  Hoadly. 

From  about  1834,  when  Chase  had  gained  a  repu 
tation  as  a  lawyer,  he  always  had  in  his  office  one  or 
more  law  students.  At  that  period  law  schools  were 
few  and  feeble,  and  trje  approved  method  of  legal 
education  was  to  go  into  a  lawyer's  office,  do  his 
drudgery,  read  his  books,  and  pick  up  crumbs  of 
his  wisdom.  To  Chase,  however,  the  relation  was 
much  more  serious  than  that  of  "teacher  to  pupil, 
or  of  man  of  affairs  to  an  unpaid  employee :  he 
felt  a  genuine  interest  in  these  able  young  men, 
cultivated  their  friendship,  impressed  them  with 
his  strong  personality,  and  sent  them  out  into  the 
world  to  be  good  lawyers, — and  to  be  "Chase  men." 
Nothing  more  plainly  speaks  the  real  sanity  and 
strength  of  Chase's  character  than  the  later  success 
of  many  of  these  men  in  law  and  in  public  life. 
Among  them  were  George  Pugh,  supporter  of 
Chase  for  the  Senate  in  1849,  and  in  1855  his 
political  rival  and  the  successor  to  his  seat ;  Stan 
ley  Matthews,  Chase's  confidential  agent  in  the 
legislature  of  1849,  later  senator  from  Ohio  and 
justice  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court ;  Wil 
liam  M.  Groesbeck,  member  of  Congress  from  Ohio 
in  1857—59 ;  Chase's  nephew,  Ralston  Skinner,  an 
officer  in  the  Civil  War  ;  Edward  L.  Pierce,  of 
Massachusetts,  a  strong  anti-slavery  man,  and  an 
official  of  the  Treasury  Department  under  Chase's 
secretaryship,  later  the  biographer  of  Charles 


THE  WESTERN  LAWYER  25 

Sumner;  James  Monroe,  an  Oberlin  abolitionist, 
later  sent  as  consul  to  Rio  by  Chase's  influence,  and 
afterward  member  of  Congress  ;  George  Hoadly, 
judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Ohio,  governor  of 
Ohio,  and  the  most  eminent  lawyer  who  ever  came 
under  Chase's  influence ;  Jacob  D.  Cox,  lawyer, 
historian,  governor  of  Ohio,  and  Secretary  of  the 
Interior. 

It  was  a  fine  thing  to  be  patron  and  inciter  to 
such  spirits,  but  there  was  another  side  to  this 
relation :  with  genuine  love  for  his  young  friends, 
Chase  expected  that  they  would  some  day  recipro 
cate  his  kindness,  and  he  felt  entitled  to  lay  out 
for  them  a  political  future  which  would  contribute 
to  his  own  advancement.  The  testimony  of  several 
of  them  is  that  they  felt  a  pressure  put  upon  them 
to  subordinate  their  plans  to  Chase's  judgment; 
a  few  of  them  broke  loose  from  him  and  event 
ually  turned  up  on  the  other  side  of  politics. 
Pierce  wrote  to  him  in  1856 :  "  I  have  been  in 
company  with  prominent  men  more  than  the  ma 
jority  of  young  men  of  my  age,  but  at  the  same 
time  have  looked  after  my  own  independence,  and 
avoided  the  appearance  of  being  any  one's  para 
site."  Yet,  though  Chase's  old  students  were  some 
times  his  opponents,  they  were  never  his  enemies, 
and  those  who  are  now  living  still  carry  for  him  a 
feeling  of  warm,  admiring  gratitude.  Upon  his  own 
political  fortunes  these  relations  with  young  men 
were  not  altogether  happy,  for  his  urgency  lost 
him  the  cordial  aid  of  some  of  the  strongest  of 


26  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

these  friends,  and  hence  at  critical  times  he  was 
compelled  to  rest  upon  weaker  men,  whose  counsel 
was  not  always  wise  or  disinterested. 

Chase's  legal  practice  was  chiefly  commercial ; 
he  did,  it  is  true,  assist  the  State  to  prosecute  the 
murderer  Gedney  in  1836 ;  but  outside  of  the 
famous  fugitive  slave  cases  it  was  not  his  lot  to  be 
concerned  in  any  great  causes.  His  argument  in 
the  telegraph  case  of  O'Reilly  v.  Morse,  in  1853, 
is  said  to  have  persuaded  Taney  to  alter  the  re 
ceived  doctrines  of  patent  law;  but  the  court  after 
wards  returned  to  its  former  ground. 

The  details  of  the  business  of  Chase  and  Ball 
reveal  a  curious  and  interesting  commercial  system. 
All  lawyers  see  the  seamy  side  of  life,  but  perhaps 
few  knew  so  much  as  they  of  the  intricacies  of 
State  banking,  of  the  effects  of  "  wild-cat "  bank 
notes,  of  the  difficulty  of  realizing  on  any  real- 
estate  collateral,  of  the  devices  to  shore  up  the 
credit  of  despairing  merchants,  of  the  years  neces 
sary  to  straighten  out  the  affairs  of  a  debt-ridden 
estate.  Few  firms  have  less  to  fear  from  an  exami 
nation  of  their  records ;  in  the  recesses  of  his  most 
intimate  correspondence  with  his  partner,  Chase 
appears  an  upright  man,  an  honest  lawyer,  and  a 
faithful  trustee.  In  1841  Chase  lost  his  valuable 
connection  with  the  estate  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  because  his  fees  were  considered  too  high, 
and  the  flood 'tide  in  the  affairs  of  Chase  and  Ball 
seems  to  have  been  reached  in  1845,  when  the  firm's 
annual  income  was  nearly  ten  thousand  dollars. 


THE   WESTERN  LAWYER  27 

It  was  perhaps  this  familiarity  with  banks  and 
banking  which  caused  Chase  himself  to  become  a 
man  of  affairs.  In  December,  1845,  he  figured 
out  his  debts  at  about  eleven  thousand  dollars, 
against  which  he  had  holdings  of  undivided  real 
estate,  partly  his  own,  partly  in  trust  for  his  chil 
dren  ;  and  with  his  good  professional  income  and 
his  rents  he  should  speedily  have  cleared  up  his 
obligations.  Instead,  he  held  to  his  real  estate, 
dribbling  out  taxes  from  year  to  year,  and  renew 
ing  his  notes  as  they  came  due.  At  the  end  of 
twenty  years  of  practice  he  had  probably  accumu 
lated  a  net  property  of  twenty  thousand  dollars, 
but  he  was  still  renewing  his  own  paper.  Had 
Chase  cared  to  make  corporation  law  the  chief 
business  of  his  life,  he  must  have  become  rich,  for 
he  had  the  qualities  of  a  great  railroad  lawyer  and 
manager  ;  but  he  gradually  took  up  two  interests 
which  withdrew  him  from  his  regular  practice,  and 
kept  him  a  comfortably  poor  man,  —  he  threw  him 
self  into  the  unpopular  anti-slavery  movement,  and 
he  went  into  politics  as  the  Ohio  leader  of  the  Lib 
erty  Party. 


CHAPTER  III 

ANTI-SLAVERY   IN   OHIO 

MANY  of  the  States  of  the  Union  include  two 
communities  of  widely  different  origin,  interests, 
and  standards ;  but  even  the  upper  and  lower  penin 
sulas  of  Michigan  are  not  more  diverse  now  than 
were  northern  Ohio  and  southern  Ohio  in  the  two 
decades  from  1830  to  1850.  The  reason  was  very 
simple :  the  two  great  arteries  of  travel  from  the 
seacoast  to  the  Northwest  were  by  the  Potomac 
valley  and  over  the  highlands  of  southern  Pennsyl 
vania  to  the  Ohio  River,  and  through  the  Mohawk 
valley  and  highlands  of  New  York  to  Lake  Erie. 
Over  the  southern  road  came  settlers  from  the  States 
of  Maryland,  Virginia,  Delaware,  even  North  Caro 
lina  ;  and  immigrants  through  the  ports  of  Balti 
more,  Alexandria,  and  Norfolk.  By  the  northern 
route  came  New  Englanders  and  their  allies  of  cen 
tral  New  York.  Even  the  land  grants  were  divided 
between  North  and  South :  to  Connecticut  fell  the 
strip  along  the  south  side  of  Lake  Erie,  the  so- 
called  "  Western  Reserve  "  and  "  Fire  Lands ;  "  to 
Virginia  were  left  the  Military  Bounty  Lands  in 
southern-central  Ohio.  The  State  was  also  the 
shortest  bridge  between  the  slave-holding  territory 


ANTI-SLAVERY  IN  OHIO  29 

of  Virginia  and  Kentucky  and  the  free  shores  of 
Canada.  The  northern  counties  knew  negroes 
chiefly  as  panting  fugitives;  the  southern  coun 
ties  looked  across  the  river  upon  a  mild  form  of 
negro  slavery,  and  themselves  had  a  plentiful  sprin 
kling  of  freemen  of  the  negro  race.  The  northern 
counties  turned  eastward  for  their  markets  and 
their  stocks  of  goods,  while  southern  trade  was  the 
support  of  many  communities  on  the  Ohio  River. 
It  was  inevitable  that  there  should  be  jealousy  and 
antagonism  within  the  State,  and  that  the  rivalry 
of  interests  should  some  day  find  expression  in 
politics;  fortunately  there  were  on  the  southern 
border  a  few  men  like  Chase,  who  shared  in  the 
antagonism  to  slavery,  and  who  eventually  created 
a  common  political  standpoint  for  both  sections 
of  the  State. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  negro  question 
in  Ohio  was  never  extraneous,  as  it  was  in  Massa 
chusetts  and  Vermont.  However  little  one  might 
feel  responsibility  for  slaves  in  Kentucky,  it  was 
impossible  to  dodge  questions  of  the  free-negro 
population  in  Ohio ;  and  the  majority  of  the  people 
in  the  State  liked  that  element  as  little  as  it  was 
liked  in  the  South.  In  1830  there  were  about 
7500  negroes  in  Ohio,  of  whom  2200  were  in  Cin 
cinnati,  and  most  of  the  others  in  towns.  Most  of 
the  adults  had  been  born  slaves,  had  bought  or 
received  their  freedom,  and  had  then  come  across 
the  borders,  hoping  to  find  better  opportunity  for 
themselves  and  their  children  than  in  the  slave 


30  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

States ;  but  they  were  at  the  bottom  of  the  com 
munities  from  which  they  came,  and  most  of  them 
remained  in  a  despised  and  degraded  class  in  Ohio. 

The  general  policy  of  the  States  on  both  sides  of 
the  river  was  to  prevent  such  people  from  changing 
theif  domicile.  In  1807  the  Ohio  legislature  passed 
a  stringentr4aw  for  the  registration  of  the  free  ne 
groes,  requiring  them  to  give  bonds  that  they  would 
not  become  a  public  charge,  and  subjecting  them  to 
exclusion  from  the  State  if  the  security  were  refused 
or  neglected;  at  the  same  time,  any  person  who 
harbored  an  unregistered  free  negro  was  liable  to 
a  large  fine.  This  law  remained  a  dead  letter, 
partly  from  the  difficulty  of  administration,  but 
chiefly  because  the  community  needed  hewers  of 
wood  and  drawers  of  water  and  seethers  of  flesh 
and  fullers  of  fine  linen ;  and  when  it  came  to  the 
point,  Cincinnati,  like  every  Southern  community 
which  has  ever  faced  the  problem,  preferred  the 
free  negro  to  no  negro  at  all. 

Under  the  constitution  of  Ohio,  negroes  were  as 
a  matter  of  course  excluded  from  voting,  and  by 
statutes  similar  to  those  of  all  slave-holding,  and 
of  some  free,  States,  they  were  put  in  a  position 
of  painful  legal  inferiority:  thus  their  testimony 
could  not  be  received  against  white  persons,  even 
to  corroborate  white  witnesses ;  they  had  no  right 
to  public  education,  even  though  they  paid  school 
taxes ;  and  where  law  did  not  reach,  public  senti 
ment  came  in,  to  prevent  white  people  from  em 
ploying  colored  mechanics,  to  keep  the  negroes  out 


ANTI-SLAVERY  IN  OHIO  31 

of  the  best  quarters  of  the  cities,  and  to  prevent 
any  kind  of  social  intercourse. 

The  negro  population  was  of  various  kinds. 
Many  of  the  negroes  had  lost,  or  had  never  pos 
sessed,  legal  proofs  of  their  freedom ;  many  others 
knew  that  they  were  fugitives,  and  of  these  a  con 
siderable  number  were  slowly  buying  their  freedom. 
Indeed,  a  theological  student  is  known  to  have 
provided  for  his  education  from  the  installments 
thus  paid  by  a  man  for  his  own  flesh,  and  to  have 
charged  the  poor  negro  twelve  per  cent  on  deferred 
payments ;  and  a  negro  child  in  a  charitable  school 
excused  her  absence  by  explaining,  "  I  'm  staying  at 
home  to  help  buy  father."  Hence  when,  in  1829,  an 
attempt  was  made  in  Cincinnati  to  enforce  the 
registration  law  of  1807,  the  colored  people  in  ex 
tremity  sent  a  committee  to  see  whether  homes 
could  be  found  in  Canada.  But  before  the  emigra 
tion  could  be  arranged,  a  mob  descended  upon 
them,  and  there  were  street  fights,  in  which  some 
of  the  assailants  were  killed.  Eventually  fright 
drove  out  1100  of  the  2200  negroes  in  the  city,  of 
whom  many  went  to  Canada.  The  whole  incident 
is  a  proof  that  the  prejudices  against  the  negro 
race  were  as  strong  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Ohio 
as  on  the  south,  and  that  the  ordinary  principles  of 
the  right  to  labor,  of  movement  from  place  to  place, 
and  of  legal  privileges  did  not  apply  to  men  and 
women  of  dark  skins. 

Side  by  side  with  the  manifest  distaste  of  the 
people  of  Ohio  for  free  negroes  stood  the  entire 


VE 


32  SALMON   PORTLAND  CHASE 

willingness  of  certain  inhabitants,  black  and  white, 
to  harbor  and  aid  fugitive  slaves.  The  Ohio  River 
was  a  barrier  easily  to  be  passed  by  anybody  who 
could  paddle  a  skiff,  and  on  the  northern  side 
there  had  been,  ever  since  1787,  forerunners  of 
what  came  later  to  be  called  the  "  Underground 
Railroad."  By  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  the  right 
of  masters  to  recover  their  slaves  from  the  North 
west  Territory  was  affirmed  ;  by  the  Constitution, 
that  right  was  to  be  continued  in  every  State  ad 
mitted  to  the  Union  ;  and  by  the  federal  statute  of 
1793  the  method  of  search  was  defined.  This 
statute  recognized  the  right  of  a  master,  or  of  his 
agent,  to  lay  hands  upon  his  fugitive,  found  any 
where  in  a  free  State,  and  proprio  motu  to  drag 
him  back,  provided  any  magistrate  held  that  the 
person  arrested  was  the  escaped  slave.  It  pro 
vided  for  no  system  of  testimony,  allowed  no  jury 
to  determine  even  the  question  of  identity,  made 
no  promise  that  the  courts  of  the  slave  State  should 
examine  questions  of  disputed  freedom,  and  gave 
the  master  the  powers  of  an  officer  of  the  law  in  a 
State  of  which  he  was  not  a  citizen.  The  statute 
was  anomalous,  because  the  existence  of  free  and 
slave  States  in  the  same  Union  was  an  anomaly ;  it 
provided  no  proper  security  for  the  actual  rights  of 
free  negroes,  because  those  rights  were  little  re 
spected  anywhere  ;  and  it  ignored  the  fact  that, 
while  in  the  South  the  presumption  was  that  a 
wandering  negro  was  a  slave,  in  the  North  the  pre 
sumption  in  every  case  was  that  he  was  a  freeman. 


ANTI-SLAVERY  IN  OHIO  33 

From  the  date  of  the  Act  of  1793  it  proved 
useless  in  the  New  England  States.  The  first  case 
in  Massachusetts,  arising  in  that  very  year,  led  to 
a  violent  rescue  in  open  court ;  and  in  1796  Presi 
dent  Washington  was  informed  that  he  could  not 
safely  set  the  machinery  of  the  law  in  motion  to 
recover  a  slave  woman  from  Portsmouth,  N.  H. 
In  the  States  bordering  on  slave-holding  regions 
the  law  had  more  force.  In  Pennsylvania,  Ohio, 
Indiana,  and  Illinois  fugitive-slave  cases  were  com 
mon,  and  usually  the  seizure  was  unresisted.  But 
many  masters  lost  the  trail,  or  would  not  go  to  the 
trouble  and  expense  of  pursuit ;  and  there  were 
many  negroes  (like  an  "  Uncle  Tom "  whom  the 
writer  remembers  in  northern  Ohio)  who  were  well 
known  in  the  whole  countryside  to  be  fugitives. 
The  legal  question  was  further  complicated  by  the 
fact  that  the  Ohio  River  was  part  of  a  direct  high 
way  from  Virginia  and  Maryland  to  the  far  South, 
and  that  negroes  in  transit  were  often  brought  into 
ports  on  the  Ohio  side  of  the  channel ;  hence  the 
question  might  fairly  be  raised  whether  such  per 
sons  were  "  fugitives." 

O 

By  the  operation  of  the  Black  Laws,  by  propin 
quity  to  slave-holding  territory,  and  by  the  object 
lesson  of  fugitive  slaves,  the  people  of  Ohio  were 
compelled  to  know  something  of  the  institution 
and  to  take  some  responsibility  for  it.  Both  as  a 
question  of  morals  and  as  a  question  of  political 
liberty,  the  startling  contrast  between  slavery  and 
Christian  American  civilization  inevitably  came 


34  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

before  men's  minds,  and  the  result  was  the  anti- 
slavery  agitation,  which  swiftly  developed  into  an 
abolition  movement.  Not  only  was  Ohio  a  free 
State,  it  had  never  had  any  other  than  a  free 
organization.  The  Ordinance  of  1787,  secured  by 
Massachusetts  men  who  desired  to  found  a  colony 
on  the  principles  with  which  they  were  familiar,  but 
also  passed  with  the  assent  of  every  Southern  mem 
ber  present,  provided  that  "  there  shall  be  neither 
slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude  in  the  said  Ter 
ritory,  otherwise  than  in  the  punishment  of  crimes 
whereof  the  party  shall  have  been  duly  convicted." 
This  clause  did  not  apply  to  slaves  already  in  the 
Territory ;  but,  fortunately,  as  yet  the  only  slave 
holders  in  the  Northwest  were  a  few  French  settlers 
and  some  Southern  squatters ;  and  the  slaves  held 
in  1787  gradually  died  off,  so  that  in  1840  slaves 
appear  for  the  last  time  in  the  census  list  for 
Ohio.  The  state  constitution  of  1802  repeated 
the  phrase  of  the  Ordinance,  with  the  result  that 
there  was,  and  could  be,  no  state  statute  authoriz 
ing  any  person  to  restrain  another  of  his  liberty 
on  the  ground  that  he  was  a  "  slave,"  unless  he  had 
"  fled  "  from  "  another  State  "  and  was  "  found  " 
in  Ohio. 

From  1775  to  1830  the  opinion  of  most  thought 
ful  statesmen,  North  and  South,  was  that  slavery 
was  a  great  evil,  which  good  men  ought  to  dis 
countenance  ;  and  there  was  in  most  States  of  the 
Union  some  kind  of  organization  which  opposed 
slavery,  with  much  the  same  feeling  with  which 


ANTI-SLAVERY   IN   OHIO  35 

reformers  might  now  oppose  child  labor.  An 
anti-slavery  society,  founded  at  Ripley,  Ohio,  pro 
bably  before  1810,  continued  to  exist  for  more 
than  twenty  years  ;  and  so  late  as  1820  national 
anti-slavery  conventions  were  held,  usually  in  South 
ern  States,  and  sent  out  appeals  against  the  sys 
tem,  and  memorials  to  Congress.  The  feeling  on 
this  subject  was  not  very  different  in  Ohio  and 
Kentucky,  and  freedom  of  speech  in  criticism  of 
slavery  was  about  as  great  in  one  community  as 
in  the  other.  It  was  the  Missouri  Compromise 
debate  of  1820  which  roused  the  country  to  the 
fact  that  insensibly  slavery  had  become  so  profit 
able  that  the  South  held  it  an  unfriendly  act  to 
limit  its  extension.  In  that  great  contest  the  Ohio 
delegation  in  Congress  was  on  the  side  of  freedom 
for  Missouri,  but  eventually  consented  to  the  Com 
promise. 

Between  1820  and  1830  a  change  of  feeling  was 
visible  in  the  South  :  instead  of  keeping  to  the  view 
of  men  like  Jefferson  that  slavery  was  an  evil,  and 
eventually  must  disappear,  the  trend  of  opinion  was 
toward  the  doctrine  that  slavery  was  unfortunate, 
but  could  not  be  ended  without  ruin  to  the  whole 
community.  The  next  step,  consciously  taken 
only  after  the  abolition  movement  gained  headway, 
was  to  defend  slavery  as  a  good  thing  in  itself. 
Slowly  the  idea  gained  ground  in  the  North  that 
slavery  would  not  die  a  natural  death,  and  that  it 
behooved  the  friends  of  freedom  to  organize.  An 
apostle  of  anti-slavery  was  found  in  Benjamin 


36  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

Lundy,  who  worked  in  Tennessee  and  Missouri, 
organized  an  anti-slavery  society  in  Ohio  in  1817, 
and  in  1821  began  to  publish  his  "  Genius  of  Uni 
versal  Emancipation  "  in  that  State.  Other  Ohio 
societies  were  founded  in  southern  and  southeast 
ern  counties,  and  the  movement  for  an  organized 
protest  never  wholly  died  out.  In  1824  the  Ohio 
legislature  even  passed  resolutions  in  favor  of 
emancipation. 

Except  for  repeated  attempts  to  get  rid  of  slav 
ery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  there  was  between 
1820  and  1830  no  widespread  Northern  interest 
either  in  the  attack  on  slavery  or  in  its  defense. 
William  Lloyd  Garrison  took  upon  himself  in 
1831  the  task  of  compelling  his  countrymen  to 
face  the  question,  and  his  success  not  only  proved 
his  own  tremendous  intensity,  but  also  showed 
that  thousands  of  men  all  over  the  country  were 
aroused  already  and  only  waited  for  the  kindling 
spark.  Garrisonian  abolition,  however,  always  had 
three  disadvantages :  its  seat  was  in  a  common 
wealth  not  much  affected  by  actual  slavery ;  it  was 
conducted  almost  entirely  by  men  born  in  free 
States  ;  and  it  abjured  political  action.  Although 
Garrison  made  addresses  in  Ohio,  his  influence 
in  the  anti-slavery  movement  in  the  West  was 
not  direct,  but  was  exerted  through  his  disciples. 
Once  aroused,  the  Ohio  abolitionists  had  three 
powerful  advantages  :  they  knew  the  benumbing 
effect  of  slavery  in  neighboring  States ;  they  might 
call  in  the  aid  of  anti-slavery  men  who  had  been 


ANTI-SLAVERY  IN  OHIO  37 

slaveholders ;  and  they  did  not  underrate  the 
method  of  political  organization. 

Most  accounts  of  the  slavery  contest  have  been 
written  by  New  England  men,  to  whom  the  word 
"  abolitionist "  has  brought  up  chiefly  the  figures  of 
Garrison  and  Wendell  Phillips;  but  instead  of 
"  the  abolition  movement "  there  were  three  dif 
ferent  movements,  working  rarely  together,  though 
usually  side  by  side,  —  New  England  abolition, 
Middle-State  abolition,  and  Western  abolition. 
The  third,  or  Western,  movement  was  from  the  be 
ginning  the  most  effective,  because  it  was  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  actualities  of  slavery,  and 
because  it  used  political  means  to  destroy  the  traces 
of  the  accursed  system  in  its  own  communities. 

From  1831  to  1835  the  abolitionists  in  Ohio,  as 
well  as  those  elsewhere,  were  learning  to  forge  their 
weapons  for  the  tremendous  task  which  they  had 
undertaken.  The  movement  would  have  had  no 
more  vitality  than  the  contemporary  anti-Masonic 
episode,  but  for  one  of  those  inherent  weaknesses 
in  slavery  which  were  ultimately  to  set  at  naught 
the  counsels  of  the  ungodly.  Upon  the  face  of 
things,  a  man  might  say  in  Massachusetts  or  in 
Ohio  that  slavery  was  wrong,  or  even  that  slave 
holders  were  criminals,  as  freely  as  he  might  say 
that  judicial  torture  in  China  was  wrong,  or  that 
the  serf -owners  of  Russia  were  criminals ;  and  an 
American  citizen  had  as  much  right  to  petition  for 
the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia 
as  for  regulation  of  immigrant  vessels.  Indeed,  the 


38  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

spirit  and  the  letter  of  the  laws  all  over  the  country 
allowed  peaceable  public  meetings  and  criticisms 
by  speakers  and  newspapers,  even  though  acrid 
things  were  said  about  neighbors  in  other  States. 
In  the  case  of  slavery,  however,  such  attacks  were 
held  to  destroy  the  value  of  property,  and  —  what 
was  even  more  serious  —  they  tended  to  make  the 
slaves  discontented ;  moreover,  it  was  generally 
believed  in  the  South  that  they  must  lead  to  slave 
insurrections.  None  of  these  dangers  dismayed  the 
abolitionist ;  if  free  speech  and  slavery  could  not 
live  in  the  same  federal  Union,  that  fact  was  to  his 
mind  an  additional  reason  for  giving  up  slavery, 
while  to  the  startled  slaveholder  it  seemed  a  rea 
son  for  abolishing  free  speech. 

In  Ohio  there  was  from  1830  to  1849  a  specific 
objective  point  for  the  abolitionists  in  the  repeal  of 
the  Black  Laws,  attainable  by  action  of  the  legis 
lature  ;  but  even  in  that  State  the  main  issue  for 
some  years  was  simply  the  right  of  a  man  to  ex 
press  his  sentiments  on  a  public  question  under  pro 
tection  of  the  state  laws.  Two  centres  of  abolition 
agitation  were  speedily  developed,  one  in  the  Con 
necticut  Western  Reserve  in  northern  Ohio,  and 
the  other  in  and  about  Cincinnati.  In  that  city 
was  a  group  of  the  most  powerful  enemies  who 
could  be  raised  up  against  slavery,  —  sons  of  South 
ern  slaveholders,  or  themselves  former  slavehold 
ers,  who  out  of  their  own  experience  had  come  to 
hate  slavery  and  to  fight  it.  Among  them  were 
Rev.  Samuel  Crothers ;  Dr.  John  Rankin,  long 


ANTI-SLAVERY  IN  OHIO  39 

pastor  at  Ripley  on  the  Ohio,  and  agent  of  the 
Underground  Railroad ;  the  two  Dickeys ;  Wal 
lace  ;  and  the  Quaker,  Levi  Coffin.  There  was  also 
a  group  of  men  born  or  domiciled  in  Ohio,  who 
hated  slavery  on  their  own  responsibility,  and  early 
joined  forces  with  the  immigrants  from  the  South. 
What  was  now  needed  was  agitation,  organiza 
tion,  and  persecution ;  and  in  1834,  1835,  and 
1836  southern  Ohio  saw  all  these ;  and  influences 
were  then  set  at  work  which  eventually  drew 
Chase  into  the  anti-slavery  ranks.  In  1829,  at 
Walnut  Hills,  a  new  suburb  of  Cincinnati,  Lane 
Seminary  was  founded,  for  the  training  of  young 
men  for  the  Presbyterian  ministry.  Of  the  one 
hundred  students,  more  than  half  were  Southern 
ers  ;  but  the  president  was  Lyman  Beecher  of 
Connecticut ;  his  son-in-law,  Stowe,  was  associated 
with  him  as  professor,  and  one  of  the  instructors 
was  Theodore  D.  Weld  of  Massachusetts,  who  had 
brought  a  body  of  students  from  Oneida  Insti 
tute,  New  York.  Weld  had  already  come  under 
the  influence  of  Garrison,  and  had  thus  become  an 
intense  abolitionist.  In  1833  the  young  men  of  the 
Seminary  began  to  talk  on  slavery  as  a  natural 
topic  of  discussion,  of  special  interest  to  the  com 
munities  from  which  they  came.  In  1834  the  two 
forces  joined  issue  in  a  debate  in  the  chapel,  which 
lasted  eighteen  consecutive  nights  ;  a  former  slave 
was  allowed  to  give  his  testimony,  and  the  exciting 
discussion  closed  with  the  decision  of  some  of  the 
Southern  students,  notably  Allan  and  Thome,  that 


40  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

they  were  thenceforth  enemies  to  slavery.  "Works 
went  hand  in  hand  with  faith  ;  the  students  began 
to  start  Sunday  and  day  schools  for  negro  children 
at  Cincinnati,  and  to  bring  a  pressure  to  bear  on 
religious  organizations. 

This  dangerous  crisis  was  promptly  met  by  the 
Trustees.  In  August,  1834,  they  voted  that  there 
should  thenceforth  be  no  discussion  of  slavery  in 
any  public  room  of  the  seminary,  because  it  was  a 
"  political "  subject ;  and  they  dropped  John  Mor 
gan,  one  of  the  anti-slavery  men,  who  had  been 
principal  of  the  preparatory  department.  One  of 
the  Trustees,  Rev.  Asa  Mahan,  at  once  resigned, 
but  Beecher  and  Stowe  were  absent,  and  hence 
for  the  time  accepted  the  situation.  Not  so  the 
students,  of  whom  fifty-one  left  the  seminary  in  a 
body.  Where  were  they  to  go?  James  C.  Lud- 
low,  whose  daughter  Chase  married  in  1846,  lent 
them  a  building  near  the  city,  in  which  for  five 
months  they  taught  themselves,  with  the  aid  of 
some  lectures  by  Dr.  Bailey,  who  about  this  time 
became  Chase's  intimate  friend.  Thus  the  effort 
to  save  the  seminary  from  the  evil  effects  of  con 
troversy  had  led  only  to  disruption.  When,  the 
next  year,  one  of  these  students,  Amos  Dresser,  was 
found  in  Kentucky  with  abolition  documents  in  his 
possession,  he  was  seized  by  a  mob  and  brutally 
whipped  ;  but  this  incident  only  called  wider  public 
attention  to  the  troubles  of  Lane  Seminary,  and 
was  a  stock  example  of  the  barbarity  of  the  system 
of  slavery. 


ANTI-SLAVERY  IN  OHIO  41 

Meanwhile,  in  northern  Ohio,  a  place  was  pre 
paring  for  an  anti-slavery  seminary  which  might 
receive  the  Lane  seceders  and  plant  a  new  aboli 
tion  stronghold.  In  1833  it  entered  the  minds  of 
Rev.  John  J.  Shipherd  of  Elyria,  Ohio,  twenty- 
five  miles  west  of  Cleveland,  and  Philo  P.  Stewart, 
manufacturer  of  cooking-stoves,  to  found  in  the 
backwoods  of  Ohio  a  Christian  commonwealth, 
with  "  as  perfect  a  community  of  interest  as 
though  we  had  a  community  of  property."  They 
deliberately  chose  a  spot  remote  from  other  vil 
lages,  in  the  township  of  Russia,  and  there  in 
April,  1833,  they  set  up  the  first  house  in  Ober- 
lin,  so  named  from  a  philanthropic  pastor  of  the 
Vosges  Mountains.  In  December,  1833,  a  school 
was  founded  with  forty-four  students,  under  the 
name  of  "  Oberlin  Collegiate  Institute,"  which,  like 
many  academies  of  the  time,  undertook  to  carry 
pupils  "  from  the  infant  school  up  through  a  colle 
giate  and  theological  course." 

At  the  very  beginning  the  founders  took  a  pio 
neer  step  in  college  education  by  setting  forth  as 
a  purpose  of  the  institution  "  the  elevation  of 
female  character  by  bringing  within  the  reach  of 
the  misjudged  and  neglected  sex  all  the  instruc 
tive  privileges  which  hitherto  unreasonably  distin 
guished  the  leading  sex  from  theirs."  The  educa 
tion  of  negroes,  or  even  of  anti-slavery  agitators, 
was  not  a  part  of  the  original  plan  ;  but  Mr.  Ship- 
herd  was  aroused  by  the  news  from  Lane  Seminary, 
went  to  Cincinnati,  and  reported,  in  December, 


42  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

1834,  that  they  must  engage  as  professors  Rev. 
Asa  Mahan,  and  Morgan,  the  dismissed  instructor  ; 
adding  that  those  men  would  come  to  Oberlin 
only  on  condition  that  students  should  be  admitted 
"  irrespective  of  color." 

There  was  an  uproar  in  Oberlin,  with  many 
threats  of  withdrawal  from  the  community  and  the 
school.  There  were  as  yet  few,  if  any,  out-and-out 
abolitionists  in  the  place,  and  the  Trustees  at  first 
voted  not  to  take  action  which  would  put  Oberlin 
on  a  different  footing  from  other  schools  in  Ohio. 
In  a  second  meeting,  however,  they  voted :  "  That 
the  education  of  the  people  of  color  is  a  matter  of 
great  interest,  and  should  be  encouraged  and  sus 
tained  in  the  institution."  Thereupon  Mahan  ac 
cepted  the  presidency  and  Morgan  a  professorship, 
and  with  them  came  thirty  of  the  Lane  seceders, 
including  Amos  Dresser,  while  others  went  to  West 
ern  Reserve  College.  The  school  rapidly  increased, 
though  of  two  hundred  and  seventy-seven  students 
in  1835  only  one  was  colored.  Theodore  D.  Weld 
now  came  to  Oberlin  as  an  abolitionist  lecturer  and 
converted  the  doubters,  and  from  that  time  to  the 
end  of  the  Civil  War,  Oberlin  was  a  radiating  point 
for  an  incessant  abolition  propaganda.  The  Lane 
students  and  their  successors  went  out  as  apostles 
all  over  the  State ;  they  lectured,  they  preached, 
they  wrote,  they  endured  persecutions ;  they  scat 
tered  through  the  Northwest,  and  brought  up  their 
children  to  fight  the  slave  power.  In  Oberlin  the 
colored  students  became  about  a  sixteenth  of  the 


ANTI-SLAVERY  IN  OHIO  43 

whole  number,  and  the  colored  population  about  a 
fourth  ;  the  place  was  a  junction  on  the  Under 
ground  Railroad,  and  a  meeting-place  for  radical 
abolitionists ;  and  since  the  Oberlinites  never  for 
a  moment  accepted  Garrison's  policy  of  non-inter 
vention,  they  voted,  and  in  1848  their  votes  re 
turned  the  man  who  came  to  hold  the  balance  of 
power  in  the  Ohio  senatorial  contest,  and  who  cast 
his  deciding  ballot  for  Salmon  P.  Chase. 

Oberlin  was  not  the  only  anti-slavery  centre  of 
northern  Ohio.  For  some  years  Elizur  Wright 
and  Beriah  Green  were  professors  in  Western  Re 
serve  College  at  Hudson,  —  the  Western  Yale, — 
where  they  poured  forth  anti-slavery  doctrine  till 
they  were  compelled  to  resign.  The  Western  Re 
serve  was  peopled  chiefly  by  immigrants  from 
Connecticut,  a  church-going  and  a  reading  folk, 
provided  with  good  schools  and  able  newspapers  ; 
hence  the  anti-slavery  seed  there  fell  upon  good 
soil,  and  gradually  there  grew  up  a  constituency 
massed  in  one  congressional  district,  in  which  the 
anti-slavery  men  were  predominant.  From  that 
district  of  the  Western  Reserve  in  1838  came  Gid- 
dings,  the  first  Western  anti-slavery  member  of 
the  national  House  of  Representatives ;  and  he 
was  steadily  reflected  at  every  opportunity  up  to 
1860. 

The  Lane  Seminary  and  Oberlin  movements 
came  to  a  head  early  in  1835,  and  the  next  step 
was  to  form  an  organization  of  the  anti-slavery 
men  throughout  the  State.  A  state  convention  of 


44  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

more  than  one  hundred  delegates  was  held  at 
Putnam  in  April,  1835,  at  which  many  of  the 
Lane  seceders  were  present,  among  them  Weld, 
H.  B.  Stanton  (later  a  life-long  friend  of  Chase), 
and  Horace  Bushnell.  The  main  work  of  the 
meeting  was  the  foundation  of  the  "  Ohio  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,"  to  be  carried  on  in  organic  rela 
tion  with  the  national  society.  Most  of  the  few 
remaining  old  anti-slavery  societies  in  Ohio  affili 
ated  themselves  with  the  new  society,  and  other 
auxiliaries  were  organized  ;  so  that  at  the  end  of 
the  year  there  were  a  hundred  and  twenty  socie 
ties,  with  more  than  ten  thousand  members.  An 
other  fruit  of  the  meeting  and  the  society  was  an 
able  "  Report  on  the  Condition  of  the  People  of 
Color  in  the  State  of  Ohio,"  which  opened  the  eyes 
of  the  community  to  the  character  of  the  Black 
Laws. 

No  Cincinnati  newspaper  sympathized  with  the 
movement ;  hence  the  next  step  was  to  found  a 
distinct  abolition  journal.  At  this  point  appears 
one  of  the  most  interesting  figures  in  the  whole 
Western  abolition  movement,  James  G.  Birney,  a 
Kentuckian  by  birth,  once  a  slaveholder,  who  had 
by  sheer  force  of  his  own  conscience  renounced 
the  system  and  set  free  his  remaining  slaves.  Bir 
ney  felt  that  he  understood  the  difficulties  of  slav 
ery  better  than  the  Garrisonians  did,  and  he  planned 
an  anti-slavery  journal  which  should  command  re 
spect  by  its  studied  moderation  of  tone  and  avoid 
ance  of  hard  language.  Although  a  Kentucky 


ANTI-SLAVERY  IN  OHIO  45 

state  society  was  founded  in  1835,  he  found  it  im 
possible  to  start  his  paper  in  that  State ;  accord 
ingly  he  crossed  the  river,  and  in  1836  set  up  the 
"  Philanthropist "  at  a  little  town  above  Cincin 
nati  ;  and  the  new  state  society  afterward  agreed 
to  publish  it  in  Cincinnati. 

Precisely  the  issue  was  now  made  which  caused 
the  murder  of  Lovejoy  at  Alton  in  1837,  namely, 
the  right  to  publish  in  a  border  town  a  paper 
censuring  the  institutions  of  the  neighbor  State ; 
and  substantially  the  same  means  were  adopted  to 
stop  the  paper  as  in  Lovejoy's  case.  Cincinnati 
had  at  just  that  time,  July,  1836,  a  number  of 
Southern  visitors,  and  it  profited  by  Southern 
trade.  Accordingly  a  public  meeting  was  called  to 
protest  against  the  "  Philanthropist."  The  mayor 
of  the  city  presided,  with  various  local  dignitaries 
as  vice-presidents,  and  resolutions  were  passed 
against  the  proposed  paper.  As  this  action  had 
no  effect,  on  July  12  the  printing-office  was  broken 
into  by  a  mob  and  badly  damaged.  The  mayor  is 
sued  a  proclamation  against  the  rioters,  but  he 
directed  it  also  against  the  persistent  abolitionists. 
Birney's  rejoinder  was  to  repair  his  press  for  the 
continuance  of  his  paper.  The  next  step,  July  23, 
was  a  rousing  anti-abolition  meeting,  which  repre 
hended  the  violence  of  the  abolitionists,  and  ap 
pointed  a  committee  to  advise  Birney  to  desist. 
Judge  Burnet,  Lawrence  (the  president  of  the 
Lafayette  Bank),  and  other  friends  of  Chase  ac 
cepted  membership,  and  urged  upon  the  executive 


46  SALMON   PORTLAND  CHASE 

committee  of  the  Ohio  society  that  such  a  paper 
was  damaging  to  the  city  ;  not  a  single  local  news 
paper  defended  the  right  of  free  speech  or  spoke 
out  for  its  own  inestimable  privilege  of  a  free 
press. 

During  the  years  of  agitation  in  Ohio,  and  of 
especial  excitement  in  Cincinnati,  where  was  the 
ardent  young  New  England  lawyer,  Chase  ?  The 
question  of  slavery  had  several  times  come  before 
his  mind  since  he  first  went  to  Washington.  The 
status  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  was 
peculiar.  Congress  had  never  legislated  directly 
on  the  subject,  but  by  the  act  of  1801  had  or 
dained  that  existing  laws  of  all  kinds  were  to  con 
tinue  in  force  till  altered.  Those  existing  laws  in 
cluded  an  elaborate  slave  code,  which  in  the  course 
of  years  was  outgrown  by  the  humanitarian  spirit 
of  Maryland,  and  therefore  was  modified  by  state 
statutes,  but  remained  unamended  in  the  District. 
Besides  a  system  of  Black  Laws,  like  that  of  Ohio, 
there  were  also  fierce  punishments  for  slave  offenses, 
such  as  hanging  and  quartering ;  and  stray  ne 
groes  taken  up  and  unable  to  give  a  good  account 
of  themselves  might  be  jailed  for  inquiry,  and 
then  sold  for  their  jail  fees.  In  1828  humanita 
rian  petitioners  had  for  some  years  been  pressing 
Congress  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  District,  and 
Chase  was  drawn  into  the  agitation  in  a  manner 
which  he  describes  as  follows :  "  One  day  a  respect 
able  Quaker,  a  mechanic,  I  think,  called  on  me  with 
a  paper,  or  some  scraps  of  paper  containing  the 


ANTI-SLAVERY  IN  OHIO  47 

leading  ideas  for  a  petition  to  Congress  for  the 
gradual  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District,  and 
requested  me  to  make  out  from  them  the  draft 
of  a  petition  for  circulation.  I  complied  cheer 
fully  with  his  request.  The  petition  was  drawn 
and  put  in  circulation,  whether  exactly  as  I  drew 
it  or  after  being  modified  by  other  hands  I  cannot 
say,  and  received  over  a  thousand  signatures  from 
nearly  all  the  leading  men  of  the  District  of  every 
station  and  occupation  and  was  presented  to  Con 
gress,  I  think  in  1828." 

Biographers  and  panegyrists  of  Chase  have 
attempted  to  prove  by  this  incident  a  moral  in 
terest  which  Chase  never  claimed  for  it ;  he  acted 
simply  as  a  clerk,  and  during  the  next  seven  years 
he  gave  no  evidence  that  in  his  judgment  the  slav 
ery  question  was  vital.  In  1829,  after  reading  a 
speech  delivered  in  the  Virginia  Constitutional 
Convention,  which  asserted  that  the  laborers  of  the 
free  States  were  no  more  intelligent  than  the  slaves, 
and  ought  to  have  no  more  political  privileges,  he 
noted  in  his  diary  that  such  a  sentiment  was  "  ut 
terly  abhorrent  to  many  people  of  equal  rights." 
In  1830,  in  his  article  on  Henry  Brougham,  he 
praises  him  as  "  the  advocate  of  human  liberty  " 
an'd  as  "the  able  champion  of  the  injured  and 
downtrodden  children  of  Africa ; "  and  he  even 
quotes  with  approval  Brougham's  appeal  to  "  a  law 
above  all  the  enactments  of  human  codes ;  .  .  . 
and  by  that  law  .  .  .  they  shall  reject  the  wild 
and  guilty  fantasy  that  man  can  hold  property  in 


48  SALMON   PORTLAND  CHASE 

man."  But  Chase  does  not  here  put  himself  for 
ward  as  an  "  advocate  of  liberty,"  and  in  June, 
1831,  he  even  critically  discusses  the  Ordinance  of 
1787,  with  no  word  of  praise  for  its  anti-slavery 
clause.  In  his  "History  of  Ohio,"  published  in 
1833,  he  again  considers  the  Ordinance,  but  care 
fully  avoids  any  controversy. 

This  is  all  the  positive  evidence  that  Chase  had 
convictions  on  slavery  earlier  than  1836.  In  his 
diaries,  his  letter-books,  and  the  many  letters  sent 
to  him,  not  a  word  appears  which  shows  that  he  had 
so  much  as  heard  of  Garrison  ;  the  Lane  Seminary 
episode  passes  unnoticed ;  the  convention  of  1835, 
the  Oberlin  contentions,  the  new  state  society, 
Birney's  attempts  to  found  the  "  Philanthropist,"  - 
all  these  were  less  important  in  his  eyes  than  ob 
taining  the  use  of  public  school  rooms  for  Sunday- 
schools,  or  "  brother  William's  debts." 

Like  thousands  of  other  anti-slavery  men,  like 
John  Quincy  Adams,  like  Wendell  Phillips,  Chase 
was  aroused  not  by  the  wrongs  of  the  slave  but  by 
the  dangers  to  free  white  men.  He  did  not  hear 
the  cries  at  the  Covington  whipping-post  across  the 
river,  but  he  could  not  mistake  the  shouts  of  the 
mob  which  destroyed  Birney's  property  and  sought 
his  life ;  his  earliest  act  as  an  anti-slavery  man  was 
to  stand  for  the  every-day  right  of  a  fellow  resident 
of  Cincinnati  to  express  his  mind.  An  autobio 
graphical  fragment,  found  among  his  papers,  de 
scribes  his  conversion  to  positive  anti-slavery. 

"  At  this  time  I  had  come  to  regard  the  Slavery 


ANTI-SLAVERY   IN   OHIO  49 

question  as  among  the  most  important  questions  of 
the  day  ;  and  I  was  not  long  in  discovering  it  to  be 
the  most  important.  I  heard  with  disgust  and  horror 
the  mob  violence  directed  against  the  Anti-Slavery 
Press  and  Anti-Slavery  men  of  Cincinnati  in  1836. 
My  own  sister  was  the  wife  of  one  of  the  most 
worthy  and  respectable  of  these  Anti-Slavery  men, 
Dr.  Isaac  Colby.  Through  them  I  had  become 
personally  acquainted  with  most  of  them,  though 
I  did  not  at  this  time  know  Mr.  Birney,  the  Editor 
of  the  Paper.  I  knew  them  to  be  as  pure,  upright, 
and  worthy  citizens  as  Cincinnati  contained.  Yet 
against  these  men  and  their  families  the  fury  of  a 
mob,  stirred  up  by  politicians  and  by  emissaries 
from  slave  States,  was  directed.  My  own  sister  left 
her  house  and  took  refuge  in  mine.  I  was  opposed 
at  this  time  to  the  views  of  the  abolitionists,  but  I 
now  recognized  the  slave  power  as  the  great  enemy 
of  freedom  of  speech  freedom  of  the  press  and 
freedom  of  the  person.  I  took  an  open  part  against 
the  mob.  Of  the  prominent  citizens  very  few 
stood  decidedly  on  that  side.  Charles  Hammond, 
a  man  who  had  some  faults  and  many  virtues,  among 
which  last  were  true  greatness  of  soul  and  intense 
horror  of  cowardice  and  meanness,  was  chief  among 
these  few.  I  drafted  and  he  with  others  signed  a 
call  for  a  meeting  of  those  opposed  to  mobs.  He 
and  I  drafted  the  resolutions  intended  to  be  pre 
sented  in  the  meeting  :  but  when  the  hour  came 
arid  we  repaired  to  the  Court  House  we  found  the 
mob  there  and  a  meeting  organized.  A  committee 


50  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

was  appointed  and  I  was  named  upon  it.  In  the 
Committee  I  read  the  resolutions  we  had  prepared, 
but  they  were  voted  down,  and  others  reported  in 
their  place  which,  under  the  circumstances,  were 
justly  regarded  as  approving  rather  than  censuring 
the  mob.  Shortly  after  the  meeting  adjourned 
I  was  for  a  time  in  a  good  deal  of  personal  danger 
in  consequence  of  a  declaration  that  I  would  sooner 
give  ten  thousand  dollars  than  see  the  press  de 
stroyed  by  a  mob.  But  my  assailants  contented 
themselves  with  denunciation,  without  proceeding  to 
a  personal  attack.  On  the  night  of  one  of  these  days 
a  mob  gathered  around  the  door  of  the  Franklin 
House,  determined  to  enter  and  make  search  for 
Mr.  Birney.  I  stood  in  the  doorway,  and  told  them, 
calmly  but  resolutely,  no  one  could  pass.  They 
paused.  One  of  them  asked  who  I  was  ?  I  gave  my 
name.  One,  who  seemed  a  ringleader,  said  I  should 
answer  for  this.  I  told  him  I  could  be  found  at  any 
time.  The  mob  did  not  choose  to  attack  me  in  my 
position,  and  after  a  while,  to  my  great  relief,  the 
Mayor,  who  had  been  in  the  House,  came  out  and 
declared  to  the  mob  that  Mr.  Birney  was  not  there, 
upon  which  they  drew  off. 

"  From  this  time  on,  although  not  technically  an 
abolitionist,  I  became  a  decided  opponent  of  Sla 
very  and  the  Slave  Power :  and  if  any  chose  to 
call  me  an  abolitionist  on  that  account,  I  was  at 
no  trouble  to  disclaim  the  name.  I  differed  from 
Mr.  Garrison  and  others  as  to  the  means  by  which 
the  Slave  Power  could  be  best  overthrown  and 


ANTI-SLAVERY   IN   OHIO  51 

Slavery  most  safely  and  fitly  abolished  under  our 
American  Constitution  ;  not  in  the  conviction  that 
these  objects  were  of  para*mount  importance. 

"  In  1837  I  first  publicly  declared  my  views  in 
respect  to  Legislation  under  the  Constitution  for 
the  Extradition  of  Fugitives  from  Service." 

Chase's  narrative  plainly  refers  to  the  second 
Birney  mob,  of  July  30-31, 1836,  in  which  the  office 
of  the  "  Philanthropist "  was  sacked,  and  some  negro 
houses  were  attacked.  General  William  Birney, 
in  his  published  life  of  his  father  and  in  personal 
conference  with  the  writer,  declares  that  Chase, 
together  with  his  partner  Eels,  had  visited  James 
Birney  in  the  previous  year,  1835,  and  had  even 
examined  a  title  for  him  ;  and  that  his  father  by 
elaborate  argument  prepared  Chase's  mind  to  ac 
cept  anti-slavery  doctrine.  That  Chase  had  already 
known  Birney  is  disproved  by  his  own  positive  re 
membrance  that  he  had  no  acquaintance  with  Birney 
before  the  mob.  Nevertheless  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  Birney's  genial  personality,  conviction, 
and  lucidity  of  statement,  were  the  strongest,  most 
direct,  and  most  effective  influences  in  bringing 
Chase  to  place  himself  decisively  among  the  few 
score  abolitionists  of  Cincinnati.  That  Chase 
would  in  the  end  have  taken  up  the  anti-slavery 
cause  is  probable  ;  but  from  Birney  proceeded  the 
spark  which  kindled  Chase's  soul.  General  Wil 
liam  Birney  cannot  be  mistaken  in  his  recollections 
of  the  long  conferences  in  his  father's  library ; 
Chase  was  Birney's  counsel  in  the  Matilda  case  in 


52  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

1837,  and  thus  publicly  associated  himself  with  the 
reformer ;  and  a  close  examination  shows  that  the 
constitutional  argument*  with  which  Chase  smote 
the  Amalekites  were  founded  on  Birney's  theses, 
thought  over  in  Chase's  mind  till  he  gave  them 
his  own  stamp.  Should  other  evidence  be  in 
sufficient,  a  letter  of  June  5,  1837,  from  Birney  to 
Chase,  written  before  Chase  had  ever  made  any 
public  profession  of  anti-slavery,  shows  how  com 
plete  was  the  understanding  between  them.  Birney 
writes  confidentially,  in  accordance  with  a  promise 
made  to  Chase  to  inform  him  of  the  anti-slavery  out 
look  in  the  East.  He  tells  of  a  visit  to  Newport 
and  of  Dr.  Channing's  agreement  to  join  in  the  agi 
tation  ;  of  his  two  hours'  conversation  with  John 
Quincy  Adams,  who  desired  the  support  of  the  abo 
litionists  in  his  protest  against  the  annexation  of 
Texas  ;  and  he  urges  Chase  to  stir  up  all  the  Cincin 
nati  newspapers  against  that  project.  It  is  the 
cry  of  one  soldier  calling  to  another  on  the  battle 
field. 

The  instrument  of  Chase's  conversion  to  anti- 
slavery  was  still  not  the  ultimate  cause.  There 
must  have  been  some  deeper  reason  why  Chase,  just 
established  in  a  pro-slavery  community,  should  turn 
his  back  on  his  own  apparent  interests  to  take  up  a 
cause  inexpressibly  distasteful  to  most  of  the  refined 
and  educated  people  there  —  his  acquaintances ; 
and  it  is  still  more  remarkable  that  he  should 
have  put  himself  out  of  relation  with  both  the 
political  cohorts  which  were  about  to  become 


ANTI-SLAVERY  IN  OHIO  53 

national  political  parties.  The  testimony  of  those 
who  came  closest  to  him  is  that  he  took  up  the  anti- 
slavery  cause  because  he  felt  it  to  be  a  religious 
duty,  because  he  believed  slavery  to  be  a  dreadful 
moral  wrong.  Ten  years  later,  indeed,  he  was 
much  concerned  at  the  apathy  shown  toward  slavery 
by  the  Episcopal  church,  of  which  he  was  a  mem 
ber  ;  and  all  his  writings  and  speeches  through 
out  his  life  are  permeated  with  the  prime  conviction 
that  slavery  can  have  no  legal  justification,  not 
only  because  it  is  contrary  to  the  laws  of  nature, 
but  because  it  offends  and  outrages  the  laws  of 
God. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE   POLITICAL   ABOLITIONIST 

WHEN  a  moral  conviction  was  once  established 
in  Chase's  mind,  it  never  could  be  removed ;  but 
he  was  a  man  whose  convictions  grew  upon  him  as 
time  went  on,  and  it  was  several  years  before  he 
had  worked  out  in  his  own  mind  the  argument 
against  slavery  which  should  carry  his  principles 
into  other  minds.  Once  enlisted  in  the  anti-slavery 
cause,  he  gave  to  it  most  of  the  twenty-four  years 
of  his  life  from  1837  to  1861. 

Yet  Chase  never  held  himself  to  be  an  "  aboli 
tionist,"  but  always  insisted  that  he  was  an  "  anti- 
slavery  man."  In  1834  the  Cincinnati  "  Gazette  " 
said  that  he  was  "  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
lawyers  of  the  State  and  .  .  .  not  an  abolitionist." 
In  1840  he  declined  to  sign  a  call  to  an  anti-slavery 
convention.  In  1843  he  "  discussed  with  Mr.  H. 
the  principles  of  Liberty  men  as  distinguished  from 
abolitionists."  In  1851  he  said  in  the  Senate : 
"  I  am  aware  there  are  some  abolitionists  or  anti- 
slavery  men  who  regard  the  Constitution  as  at  war 
with  moral  obligations  and  the  supreme  law.  I 
am  not  of  them."  His  last  speech  on  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Bill,  in  1854,  and  his  public  utterances 
in  1855,  indignantly  disavowed  any  sympathy  with 


THE   POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  55 

the  disunion  sentiments  of  Garrison,  a  compliment 
which  the  "  Liberator  "  and  Edmund  Quincy  repaid 
in  1859,  when  they  called  him  a  "  political  huck 
ster,  who  hopes  to  carry  his  principles  to  the  presi 
dential  market."  Gideon  Welles,  Chase's  colleague 
in  Lincoln's  cabinet,  says  that  Chase  was  sensitive 
at  being  considered  a  political  abolitionist ;  and  in 
a  letter  of  1863  Chase  himself  says  of  his  attitude : 
"  I  never  was  an  abolitionist  of  that  school  which 
taught  that  there  could  never  be  a  human  duty 
superior  to  that  of  the  instant  and  unconditional 
abolition  of  slavery." 

The  distinction  which  Chase  made  had  a  logical 
ground  and  much  political  importance,  so  far  as  it 
related  to  that  Garrisonian  abolition  which  then  as 
now  was  too  often  accepted  as  the  type  of  abolition 
in  general.  It  was  a  distinction  perfectly  clear-cut 
in  the  East,  where  John  Quincy  Adams  always  re 
fused  to  be  called  an  abolitionist,  though  for  years 
the  national  champion  against  the  slave  power.  If 
Garrison  and  Wendell  Phillips  were  the  typical 
genuine  abolitionists,  Chase  was  never  an  aboli 
tionist:  Garrison  was  for  an  aggressive  warfare  on 
slavery  in  the  slave  States ;  Chase  was  for  warfare 
everywhere  except  in  the  slave  States:  Garrison 
kept  himself  and  his  followers  out  of  politics  ; 
Chase  was  the  great  organizer  of  political  anti- 
slavery  :  Garrison  was  for  disunion  so  as  to  get 
relief  from  responsibility  for  slavery  ;  Chase  was 
for  making  the  Union  free  so  as  to  destroy  the  dis 
ease  altogether. 


66  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

On  the  great  question  of  the  immediate  purpose 
of  the  abolition  movement  Chase  was  also  at  odds 
with  the  Garrisonians  ;  and  he  thus  expressed  his 
dissent  in  a  letter  to  Theodore  Parker,  in  1856 : 
"  I  adopt  your  motto  very  cheerfully  and  heartily, 
'No  slavery  anywhere  in  America.  No  slavery 
anywhere  on  earth !  '  The  latter  is,  you  say,  the 
4  topmost '  idea.  The  first,  then,  is  not  topmost. 
My  sentence,  '  No  slavery  outside  of  the  slave 
States,'  also  is  not  '  topmost.'  But  it  is,  to  an 
earnest  man,  anxious  to  get  to  the  top,  quite  as 
important.  It  is  fundamental.  The  general  gov 
ernment  has  power  to  prohibit  slavery  everywhere 
outside  of  slave  States.  A  great  majority  of  the 
people  now  accept  this  idea.  Comparatively  few 
adopt  the  suggestion  that  Congress  can  legislate 
abolition  within  slave  States.  ...  I  say,  then, 
take  the  conceded  proposition  and  make  it  practi 
cal.  Make  it  a  living,  active  reality.  Then  you 
have  taken  a  great  step.  Slavery  is  denationalized." 

With  the  Ohio  abolitionists,  however,  Chase 
sympathized  and  consorted ;  for  they  had  a  very 
practical  knowledge  of  what  slavery  was,  frequent 
occasion  to  exercise  their  abolition  principles  in  aid 
of  fugitives,  and,  above  all,  the  robust  intention  of 
making  their  principles  felt  through  the  ballot-box. 
The  Western  abolitionists  dealt  less  in  invective 
than  did  their  Eastern  brethren,  and  more  in  ex 
postulation,  both  because  so  many  of  them  had 
been  born  on  slave  soil,  and  hence  could  appeal  as 
repentant  brothers  to  Southerners  still  out  of  a 


THE  POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  57 

state  of  grace,  and  also  because  they  knew  better 
than  did  the  New  England  agitators  the  real  hope 
lessness  of  getting  the  South  to  act  against  its  ap 
parent  economic  interest.  The  Western  men  knew 
what  they  wanted  as  well  as  their  Eastern  friends, 
and  seemed  to  know  better  how  to  get  it :  in  their 
aims  they  were  abolitionists  like  Charles  Sumner ; 
in  their  methods  they  were  anti-slavery  men  like 
John  Quincy  Adams.  But  Joshua  K.  Giddings, 
their  special  representative  in  Congress,  found  him 
self  the  friend,  associate,  and  ally  of  both  Sumner 
and  Adams ;  and  in  like  manner  Chase  worked 
with  out-and-out  abolition  leaders,  like  Birney  and 
Samuel  Lewis  and  Dr.  Bailey  and  Levi  Coffin, 
because  they  all  had  in  view  the  same  ends  ;  and  at 
the  same  time  he  stirred  and  organized  many  moder 
ate  anti-slavery  men  who  never  would  go  into  an 
anti-slavery  society,  but  who  were  willing  to  vote 
in  a  way  to  help  the  friends  of  liberty. 

However  Chase  may  have  deprecated  the  term 
"  abolitionist,"  his  views  on  slavery  were  so  ad 
vanced  as  to  cost  him  friends  and  clients  in  Cin 
cinnati.  Several  times  he  was  assailed  with  stones 
or  more  fragile  missiles  when  he  spoke  in  Cincin 
nati,  and  in  1855  he  was  unable  to  carry  Hamilton 
County  in  his  campaign  for  the  governorship.  On 
the  other  hand,  Chase's  activity  made  him  ac 
quainted  throughout  the  State  with  men  who  were 
later  very  serviceable  to  him,  and  his  fugitive-slave 
arguments  soon  gave  him  a  national  reputation. 
His  was  a  case  where  honesty  proved  the  best 


58  SALMON   PORTLAND  CHASE 

policy,  where  a  man  deliberately  chose  an  unpopu 
lar  and  unpromising  cause,  and  by  his  very  cour 
age  and  willingness  to  sacrifice  his  interests  was 
launched  upon  a  more  splendid  career  than  he  could 
ever  have  reached  by  letting  himself  go  with  the 
current. 

From  1841  Chase  was  a  favorite  speaker  at  anti- 
slavery  meetings  and  conventions  throughout  Ohio, 
as  well  as  in  neighboring  States,  and  even  in  the 
East.  He  was  neither  an  orator  nor  a  good  stump- 
speaker  ;  indeed,  a  nervous  hesitancy  so  affected 
his  speech  that  he  used  to  say :  "  My  tongue  is 
too  large  for  my  mouth  ; "  hence  he  used  habitu 
ally  a  clear,  moderate  utterance,  which  gave  him 
time  to  shape  his  ideas  as  they  came.  For  that 
reason  his  speeches  were  easy  to  report,  and  read 
well.  Since  he  never  could  use  the  buffoonery 
which  sets  a  great  crowd  in  a  roar,  and  which  made 
his  neighbor  Tom  Corwin  a  favorite  speaker,  he 
must  appeal  to  reason,  to  the  moral  sense,  at  least 
to  enlightened  self-interest,  not  to  the  coarser  pas 
sions.  Chase's  principal  deficiency  as  a  public 
speaker  was  his  lack  of  a  sense  of  humor.  He 
could  not  discharge  such  a  barbed  arrow  of  satire 
as  Wade's  famous  criticism  on  the  proposed  annex 
ation  of  Cuba :  "  It  is  not  a  question  of  giving 
lands  to  the  landless,  but  of  giving  niggers  to  the 
niggerless."  Yet  he  was  a  very  effective  speaker, 
always  well  grounded,  prepared  to  confront  objec 
tions  if  not  too  unexpectedly  put,  calm,  cool,  dig 
nified,  an  impersonation  of  reason  inspired  with 


THE  POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  59 

righteous  indignation.  He  had  great  endurance, 
and  knew  how  to  make  many  speeches  on  the  same 
theme  without  too  much  repetition.  His  favorite 
topic  was  the  illegality  of  slavery,  but  he  knew  also 
how  to  deliver  good  hearty  blows  against  his  politi 
cal  opponents,  how  to  detect  and  bring  home  their 
inconsistencies. 

Chase's  forte,  however,  lay  in  the  preparation  of 
formal  addresses  and  platforms,  because  there  he 
had  more  room  and  more  opportunity  to  marshal 
his  thoughts.  Such  tasks  were  often  intrusted  to 

O 

him  by  the  Liberty  and  Free-Soil  men  from  1841 
to  1848.  He  wrote  the  national  Liberty  Platform 
of  1843,  the  stirring  Liberty  Address  of  1845,  the 
resolutions  of  the  People's  Convention  of  1847, 
and  the  Free-Soil  Platform  of  1848.  The  "  Address 
of  the  Southern  and  Western  Liberty  Convention," 
of  June  12,  1845,  is  perhaps  the  best  work  that 
fell  from  Chase's  pen  during  this  period  ;  a  short 
extract  from  it  will  illustrate  better  than  could  any 
criticism  his  style,  principles,  and  method  of  at 
tack. 

"  WHAT   WE   MEAN   TO   DO. 

"  Against  this  influence,  against  these  infrac 
tions  of  the  Constitution,  against  these  departures, 
from  the  national  policy  originally  adopted,  against 
these  violations  of  the  national  faith  originally 
pledged,  we  solemnly  protest.  Nor  do  we  propose 
only  to  protest.  We  recognize  the  obligations 
which  rest  upon  us  as  descendants  of  the  men 
of  the  revolution,  as  inheritors  of  the  institutions 


60  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

which  they  established,  as  partakers  of  the  blessings 
which  they  so  dearly  purchased,  to  carry  forward 
and  perfect  their  work.  We  mean  to  do  it,  wisely 
and  prudently,  but  with  energy  and  decision.  We 
have  the  example  of  our  fathers  on  our  side.  We 
have  the  Constitution  of  their  adoption  on  our 
side.  It  is  our  duty,  and  our  purpose,  to  rescue 
the  government  from  the  control  of  the  slave 
holders  ;  to  harmonize  its  practical  administration 
with  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution,  and  to  se 
cure  to  all,  without  exception,  and  without  partial 
ity,  the  rights  which  the  Constitution  guarantees. 
We  believe  that  slaveholding  in  the  United  States 
is  the  source  of  numberless  evils,  moral,  social,  and 
political ;  that  it  hinders  social  progress ;  that  it 
embitters  public  and  private  intercourse ;  that  it 
degrades  us  as  individuals,  as  States,  and  as  a  na 
tion  ;  that  it  holds  back  our  country  from  a  splen 
did  career  of  greatness  and  glory.  We  are,  there 
fore,  resolutely,  inflexibly,  at  all  times,  and  under 
all  circumstances,  hostile  to  its  longer  continuance 
in  our  land.  We  believe  that  its  removal  can  be 
effected  peacefully,  constitutionally,  without  real 
injury  to  any,  with  the  greatest  benefit  to  all. 

"HOW   WE   MEAN   TO    DO    IT. 

"  We  propose  to  effect  this  by  repealing  all 
legislation,  and  discontinuing  all  action,  in  favor 
of  slavery,  at  home  and  abroad  ;  by  prohibiting  the 
practice  of  slaveholding  in  all  places  of  exclusive 
national  jurisdiction,  in  the  District  of  Columbia, 


THE  POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  61 

in  American  vessels  upon  the  seas,  in  forts,  ar 
senals,  navy  yards ;  by  forbidding  the  employment 
of  slaves  upon  any  public  work ;  by  adopting  reso 
lutions  in  Congress,  declaring  that  slaveholding,  in 
all  States  created  out  of  national  territories,  is  un 
constitutional,  and  recommending  to  the  others  the 
immediate  adoption  of  measures  for  its  extinction 
within  their  respective  limits ;  and  by  electing  and 
appointing  to  public  station  such  men,  and  only 
such  men  as  openly  avow  our  principles,  and  will 
honestly  carry  out  our  measures." 

Another  agency  which  Chase  valued  and  cul 
tivated  was  the  anti-slavery  press.  There  were 
three  kinds  of  anti-slavery  periodicals  :  the  radical, 
aggressive  abolition  organs,  especially  Garrison's 
"  Liberator ;  "  the  political  anti-slavery  journal,  of 
which  the  "  National  Era  "  was  the  chief ;  and  the 
local  Liberty  and  Free-Soil  papers.  The  "  Liber 
ator"  furnished  plenty  of  ammunition  for  aboli 
tionists,  but  was  hopelessly  out  of  touch  with  the 
practical  politics  of  Ohio.  The  "  National  Era," 
published  in  Washington,  and  edited  by  Dr.  Bailey, 
formerly  of  Cincinnati,  an  intimate  personal  friend 
of  Chase,  was  a  good  newspaper,  and  had  a  large 
influence  throughout  the  country.  The  local  papers 
were  sometimes  started  for  no  other  purpose  than 
to  defend  abolition,  or,  more  frequently,  to  defend 
the  Liberty  or  Free-Soil  party,  and  they  found  it 
a  hard  task  to  pay  printers'  bills.  Chase  sub 
scribed  for  many  of  these  papers,  and  raised,  lent, 
or  gave  outright,  money  to  keep  some  of  the  more 


G2  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

important  of  them  afloat ;  indeed,  he  confessed  in 
1852  that  people  expected  too  much  of  him  in  the 
way  of  financial  support  of  these  enterprises. 

Chase  had  a  keen  sense  of  the  influence  of  news 
paper  editors  and  of  their  inside  knowledge  of  the 
currents  of  public  opinion.  Dozens  of  them  cor 
responded  with  him,  among  them  J.  W.  Taylor  of 
the  "  Sandusky  Register,"  one  of  Chase's  former 
law  students;  Orren  Follett  of  the  "Ohio  State 
Journal;"  and  especially  E.  S.  Hamlin,  editor  of 
the  "  Standard"  at  Columbus,  and  political  lieuten 
ant  to  Chase.  He  also  had  relations  with  some  of 
the  great  dailies  in  Ohio  and  outside,  —  with  Moli- 
tur,  the  Cincinnati  German,  Bartlett  of  the  Cincin 
nati  "  Gazette,"  Horace  Greeley  of  the  New  York 
"  Tribune,"  Bigelow  of  the  "  Evening  Post,"  and 
Dr.  Leavitt  of  the  "  Independent ;  "  but  it  was  al 
ways  a  serious  drawback  to  Chase's  political  hopes 
in  Ohio  that  he  had  not  the  friendship  of  any  of 
the  influential  Cleveland  papers.  He  knew  how  to 
set  an  item  afloat  in  the  press,  and  how  to  prepare 
the  way  for  a  discharge  of  journalistic  guns  simul 
taneously  all  along  the  line  ;  he  kept  scrap-books 
of  newspaper  extracts ;  he  sometimes  wrote  leading 
articles ;  perhaps  he  overestimated  the  effect  of  the 
press  in  creating  public  opinion. 

Chase's  powers  of  statement  made  him  a  welcome 
ally  of  the  Ohio  anti-slavery  men,  but  he  became 
their  leader,  in  the  period  from  1837  to  1849, 
through  services  which  deserve  a  careful  descrip 
tion.  In  the  first  place,  he  framed  a  convenient 


THE   POLITICAL   ABOLITIONIST  63 

constitutional  argument  against  the  legality  of 
slavery ;  next,  he  applied  his  principles  in  a  series 
of  slavery  cases,  which  drew  upon  him  the  atten 
tion  of  the  whole  country ;  and  then  he  showed  his 
friends  how  to  build  up  an  effective  political  organ 
ization. 

The  great  safeguard  of  slavery  was  its  founda 
tion  in  vested  property  rights,  protected  by  what 
seemed  an  impregnable  legality;  the  great  weak 
ness  of  slavery  was  its  total  opposition  to  the  sys 
tem  of  democracy  which  existed  alike  in  free  States, 
slave  States,  and  the  federal  government.  So  far 
as  slavery  within  the  States  was  concerned,  the 
South  might  simply  ask  the  abolitionists,  "  What 
are  you  going  to  do  about  it  ?  "  Right  or  wrong, 
dangerous  or  favorable,  slavery  existed,  slavery 
was  lawful,  and  slavery  was  protected  by  public 
sentiment.  When  it  came  to  the  powers  of  the 
national  government,  however,  the  status  of  slav 
ery  was  not  so  clear ;  but  still  the  slavocracy  had 
a  right  to  assert  that  the  Convention  of  1787  was 
aware  of  slavery,  and  had  showed  no  purpose  of 
interfering  with  it  by  its  handiwork  ;  that  the  Con 
stitution,  in  the  clauses  on  the  federal  ratio,  the 
slave  trade,  and  fugitive  slaves,  recognized  slavery  ; 
and  that  Congress,  through  successive  statutes, 
supposed  to  be  constitutional,  had  authorized  slav 
ery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  in  some  of  the 
Territories,  and  (through  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act 
of  1793)  even  in  the  free  States. 

If  the  discussion  could  have  been  kept  down  to 


64  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

questions  of  laws  and  constitutions,  the  South  had 
the  advantage  of  a  title  by  undisputed  possession. 
Hence  the  Garrisonian  abolitionists  forced  the  issue 
upon  the  other  point :  they  denounced  slavery  as 
wasteful,  cruel,  aristocratic,  demoralizing,  murder 
ous,  and  soul-destroying.  To  a  sensitive  people 
like  the  Southerners,  who  sincerely  believed  that 
they  enjoyed  the  flower  of  human  civilization,  these 
attacks  were  unendurable ;  and  for  the  sake  of 
their  own  reputation  before  mankind  they  felt  com 
pelled  to  argue  that  slavery  was  economical,  kind, 
democratic,  civilizing,  and  beneficent  to  both  blacks 
and  whites. 

After  this  exchange  of  war  cries,  it  would  have 
been  the  true  policy  of  the  South  to  assume  that 
the  advantages  of  slavery  would  prove  themselves 
to  impartial  men,  and  to  rest  behind  the  protection 
of  undeniable  state  rights.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  active  controversy,  about  1830,  there  were  no 
Territories  in  dispute,  and  all  that  was  needed  by 
slaveholders  was  to  stand  on  the  right  of  every 
State  to  exclusive  legislation  on  its  "  domestic 
institutions,"  and  to  make  such  laws  as  seemed 
good  to  them  for  the  punishment  of  abolitionists  or 
critics  within  their  own  borders.  They  came  out 
of  their  own  intrenchments  when  they  demanded 
that  the  free  States  should  throttle  the  abolition 
agitation,  and  when  they  took  the  ground  that  a 
free  discussion  of  slavery  anywhere  in  the  United 
States  was  so  dangerous  to  slavery  that  it  must  be 
stopped  at  any  sacrifice  of  the  principles  of  free 
speech  or  even  of  the  Union. 


THE  POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  65 

The  Garrisonian  abolitionists  rid  themselves  of 
all  the  constitutional  and  state-rights  arguments 
by  declaring  that  the  Constitution  was  "  a  league 
with  death  and  a  covenant  with  hell,"  and  that  they 
were  willing  to  accept  the  logical  consequence,  —  a 
division  of  the  Union.  This  position,  however  con 
sistent,  fortunately  was  contrary  to  the  instinct  of 
the  masses  of  the  people,  who  felt  that  in  the  Union 
was  their  salvation.  The  Western  abolitionists 
took  up  a  more  practical  and  more  convincing  line 
of  argument,  by  pressing  home  the  inexpediency 
and  degradation  of  slavery,  and  at  the  same  time  by 
crossing  the  line  to  attack  the  South  in  its  strong 
hold  of  legality. 

An  extreme  position  was  that  of  Joshua  R.  Gid- 
dings,  who  held  that  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence  had  destroyed  slavery  when  it  declared  that 
"  all  men  are  born  equal "  and  "  endowed  with  cer 
tain  inalienable  rights,  among  which  are  life,  lib 
erty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  ; "  he  insisted  also 
that  the  Constitution  was  "  an  anti-slavery  docu 
ment."  The  more  practical  minds  of  Chase  and  his 
friends  refused  to  accept  Giddings's  dogma ;  they 
admitted  without  hesitation  all  that  the  South 
claimed  regarding  the  legal  right  of  a  State  to 
establish  slavery,  but  treated  it  as  simply  a  techni 
cal  right  to  organize  a  status  of  brute  force ;  from 
the  right  of  a  State  to  make  a  slave  they  deduced 
the  principle  that  no  other  political  organization 
could  create  a  slave,  and  therefore  they  made  a 
strenuous  fight  against  any  sanction  or  protection 


66  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

for  slavery  in  the  federal  Constitution  or  through 
the  federal  government. 

This  line  of  argument  was  suggested  by  Birney 
as  early  as  December,  1836  ;  it  was  worked  into 
logical  form  by  Lysander  Spooner  in  1845  ;  it  was 
a  stock  argument  in  Western  anti-slavery  meet 
ings  and  newspapers,  but  Chase  was  the  man  who 
stated  it  most  clearly  and  effectively.  To  us,  who 
have  lived  through  a  civil  war,  when  people  man 
aged  to  get  on  for  years  without  a  constitution,  the 
whole  discussion  seems  forced  ;  why  dispute  over 
the  phrases  of  a  document  framed  half  a  century 
earlier  ?  Because  to  the  minds  of  men  of  that  time, 
both  North  and  South,  an  appeal  to  the  Constitu 
tion  had  the  same  kind  of  force  as  the  equally 
common  appeal  to  the  Bible :  they  were  both  codes 
of  law,  —  "  what  I  have  written,  I  have  written." 
To  be  sure,  the  South  did  not  maintain  slavery 
simply  because  it  thought  the  system  constitutional 
or  biblical,  and  the  North  did  not  move  upon  slav 
ery  because  so  bidden  by  the  Constitution  or  the 
Bible ;  but  since  the  issue  was  a  difference  of  moral 
and  political  standards  in  the  two  sections,  each 
sought  to  avail  itself  of  the  conservative  forces  of 
society  by  showing  that  it  was  trying  to  protect 
a  sound  form  of  government  and  a  God-ordained 
institution.  If  Chase  could  make  out  even  a 
plausible  case  for  the  statement  that  the  Constitu 
tion  was  neither  anti-slavery  nor  pro-slavery,  but 
neutral,  and  that  neutrality  under  American  free 
government  always  meant  freedom,  he  would  give 


THE   POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  67 

relief  and  encouragement  to  thousands  of  men  who 
were  attacking  slavery  on  other  than  constitu 
tional  grounds. 

Nothing  in  Chase's  life  so  well  shows  his  logical 
powers,  his  moral  sense,  and  the  cause  of  his  politi 
cal  success  as  his  argument  on  slavery.  It  must 
of  course  be  remembered  that  he  took  a  brief  in  re 
servi,  and  made  it  his  business  to  state  every  point 
which  could  possibly  help  his  client;  and  it  was  no 
part  of  his  function  to  prepare  his  opponent's  case, 
or  to  call  attention  to  decisions  which  bore  against 
him.  It  must  also  be  remembered  that  Chase  had 
to  meet  an  exaggerated  argument  that  the  Consti 
tution  invariably  recognized  and  protected  slavery 
wherever  it  was  not  clearly  prohibited;  to  which 
he  replied  that  the  federal  government  "  could  no 
more  make  a  slave  than  make  a  king  ; "  and  from 
that  he  plunged  into  declamation  almost  as  exag 
gerated  as  that  of  the  other  side. 

Chase's  view  of  slavery,  as  a  question  of  moral 
and  political  right,  grew  out  of  the  fact  that  he 
was  by  nature  and  education  a  democrat.  In 
addressing  colored  men  in  1845,  he  said :  "  The 
moment  the  law  excludes  a  portion  of  the  commu 
nity  from  its  equal  regard,  it  divides  the  community 
into  higher  and  lower  classes  and  introduces  all 
the  evils  of  the  aristocratic  principle."  He  was 
really  a  Jeffersonian,  although  he  appealed  to  the 
great  Democrat  only  as  an  opponent  of  slavery  in 
the  Territories  and  not  as  his  political  master.  He 
was  moreover  by  nature  a  strict  constructionist. 


68  SALMON   PORTLAND  CHASE 

"  The  old  theory  of  our  fathers,"  said  he,  "  is  the 
true  theory.  Let  us  have  a  poor  government 
and  a  rich  people,  —  light  taxes  and  abundant  in 
dividual  enterprise,  economical  expenditure  and 
steady  prosperity,  —  a  general  government  strictly 
limited  to  its  sphere,  and  state  governments  re 
spected  and  honored  because  competent  and  ready 
to  protect  the  rights  and  guard  the  interests  of  the 
people." 

How  was  the  doctrine  of  democratic  government 
and  strict  limitation  of  national  power  to  be  applied 
to  slavery  ?  By  what  Chase  in  many  addresses  and 
speeches  called  the  "  denationalization  of  slavery." 
First  of  all  he  maintained  that  history  showed  that 
the  fathers  of  the  Constitution  publicly  discouraged 
slavery,  and  that  there  was  an  understanding  that 
there  should  be  no  slavery  in  any  unorganized  or 
new  Territory.  "  Our  national  government,"  said 
Chase,  "therefore  went  into  operation  upon  the 
principle  of  no  slavery  outside  of  slave  States,  upon 
the  principle  that  slavery  is  local,  not  national ; " 
and  he  declared  that  the  later  doctrine  of  "  equal 
ity  "  between  freedom  and  slavery  was,  "  morally 
speaking,  a  base  forgery,"  that  there  had  not  been 
an  early  purpose  to  keep  up  a  balance  of  free  and 
slave  States. 

To  Chase's  mind,  moreover,  the  attitude  of  the 
Constitution  toward  slavery  was  shown  not  only 
by  its  silence  but  by  its  language,  especially  in  the 
amendment  by  which  "  no  person  shall  be  deprived 
of  life,  liberty,  or  property  except  by  due  process 


THE   POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  G9 

of  law,"  which,  he  said,  added  a  positive  injunction 
and  cut  off  any  implication  of  a  power  to  establish 
slavery  by  national  authority. 

So  far  as  the  text  of  the  Constitution  and  the 
purpose  of  its  framers  went,  Chase  was  arguing 
against  indisputable  facts,  and  hence  he  could  not 
convince  slaveholders  nor  strengthen  anti-slavery 
men.  The  actual  legislation  from  1789  to  1830 
was  a  continuous  refutation  of  his  position,  for  in 
1790  slavery  was  deliberately  permitted  by  Con 
gress  in  the  territory  south  of  the  Ohio  Kiver,  and 
three  slave  States  were  admitted  between  1812  and 
1819.  There  can  be  no  historical  doubt  that  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution  perfectly  understood 
the  inconveniences  of  the  "  house  divided  against 
itself,"  but  preferred  union  to  consistency.  Nobody 
could  deny  Chase's  most  effective  point,  —  the  de 
sire  and  hope  of  the  fathers  that  slavery  might 
disappear ;  but  that  argument  was  set  aside  in  the 
fifties  by  the  growing  Southern  opinion  that  the 
fathers  knew  less  than  their  children  about  what 
was  good  for  the  South,  and  for  mankind. 

Behind  the  constitutional  argument,  Chase  took 
up  a  second  line  of  defense,  —  an  absolute  denial 
of  any  power  in  Congress  to  establish  slavery  any 
where  by  any  process.  Here  again  he  was  combat 
ing  the  facts  of  history,  for  he  was  obliged  to 
admit  that  laws  had  been  framed  to  support  slav 
ery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  in  the  Territories, 
and  —  so  far  as  fugitives  were  concerned  —  in  free 
States ;  but  he  declared  all  such  laws  to  be  outside 


70  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

of  the  constitutional  powers  of  Congress.  Later 
in  his  career  this  position  rather  embarrassed  him, 
for  it  was  dangerously  like  Douglas's  doctrine  of 
non-intervention  and  the  principles  of  the  Dred 
Scott  decision.  The  difference,  indeed,  was  chiefly 
one  of  motive.  Chase  denied  the  power  of  Con 
gress  to  aid  slavery,  and  the  Supreme  Court  dis 
avowed  legislative  power  to  limit  slavery ;  the  South 
invoked  almost  at  the  same  moment  congressional 
action  and  judicial  limitation. 

Chase's  dialectics  were  ingeniously  applied  in 
the  many  discussions  from  1835  to  1862  on  slav 
ery  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  To  deny  to  Con 
gress  all  power  to  adopt  the  previous  laws  of 
Maryland  and  Virginia  was  farther  than  Chase 
dared  go,  since  the  land  titles  of  the  District  rested 
on  just  such  laws.  He  therefore  set  up  a  very 
subtle  and  technical  distinction,  to  the  effect  that 
the  old  laws  of  Maryland  ceased  to  have  effect  in 
the  District  when  it  was  ceded,  although  "  private 
rights "  continued ;  and  that,  since  slavery  was 
contrary  to  the  Constitution,  Congress  could  not 
reenact  it.  How  hard  put  to  it  Chase  was  in  this 
discussion  is  shown  by  his  appeal  to  the  clause  in 
the  preamble  of  the  Constitution  professing  "  to 
secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  our  posterity." 
Such  far-fetched  arguments  were  of  no  service  to 
the  cause.  A  better  line  of  attack  would  have  been 
to  urge  that  Congress  had  powers  in  the  premises 
and  should  exercise  them  by  emancipating  the 
slaves  in  the  District ;  but  Chase  accepted  the  con- 


THE   POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  71 

tradiction  of  declaring  that  the  Acts  of  Congress 
establishing  slavery  in  the  District  were  void,  and 
yet  that  Congress  had  power  to  repeal  them. 

The  Fugitive  Slave  Act  of  1793  furnished  a 
better  opportunity  for  thorough  and  effective  con 
stitutional  objections  to  slavery,  and  against  it 
Chase  appealed  literally  to  earth  and  heaven.  He 
held  it  to  be  contrary  to  the  Ordinance  of  1787, 
which  provided  for  recovery  only  from  "  the 
original  States ;  "  opposed  to  the  intention  of  the 
fathers ;  and  incompatible  with  the  constitutional 
form  of  federal  government.  "When  a  slave 
leaves  the  jurisdiction  of  the  State,"  said  he,  "  he 
ceases  to  be  a  slave,  because  he  continues  to  be  a 
man  and  leaves  behind  him  the  law  of  force  which 
made  him  a  slave."  The  statute,  argued  Chase, 
makes  no  distinction  between  apprentices  and 
slaves,  and  hence  slaves  have  all  the  immunities  of 
apprentices ;  the  details  of  the  act  are  contrary  to 
the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Constitution,  in  denying 
"  due  process  of  law  "  and  authorizing  "  unreason 
able  searches  and  seizures  ;  "  the  expectation  of  the 
Constitution  was  that  States  and  not  Congress 
should  be  responsible  for  the  apprehension  of 
fugitives ;  and,  finally,  "  the  legislature  cannot 
authorize  injustice  by  law,  it  cannot  repeal  the 
laws  of  nature,  cannot  create  any  obligation  to  do  ' 
wrong,  or  neglect  duty.  No  court  is  bound  to 
enforce  unjust  laws." 

The  appeal  to  fundamental  principles  of  right 
and  wrong,  which  could  not  be  superseded  by  laws, 


72  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

however  little  it  might  convince  a  court,  was  the 
most  effective  of  all  the  anti-slavery  arguments, 
because  it  brought  back  the  discussion  to  the 
absolute  incongruity  of  democracy  and  slavery, 
and  emphasized  both  the  question  of  moral  right 
and  the  social  expediency  of  upholding  the  moral 
law.  As  Chase  put  it,  slavery  was  nothing  but  a 
forcible  denial  of  inborn  and  God-given  rights,  and 
hence  it  could  not  have  even  a  legal  status  except 
lay  positive,  unmistakable  laws ;  when  these  laws 
ceased,  slavery  ended.  Yet  in  general  Chase  dwelt 
less  on  the  wickedness  of  slavery  in  the  sight  of 
God,  than  on  the  iniquity  of  riveting  it  upon  a 
free  Constitution,  meant  for  a  free  people ;  and  he 
made  little  use  in  his  early  arguments  of  the  de 
moralizing  effect  of  slavery  on  freemen,  though  he 
wrote  to  O'Connell  in  1843 :  "  We  find  also  and 
we  feel  in  our  bitter  experience  that  free  labor  is 
dishonored  and  its  wages  rendered  insecure  through 
out  the  whole  land  by  a  system  which  exacts  labor 
without  wages  and  degrades  the  laborer  to  the  level 
of  the  beast." 

Taking  Chase's  chain  of  arguments  as  a  whole, 
it  is  easy  to  see  defects :  he  was  working  on  a  the 
ory  not  grounded  on  fact ;  he  argued  that  slavery 
could  not  possibly  be  covered  by  the  Constitution, 
chiefly  because  it  ought  not  to  exist ;  he  assumed 
the  moral  wrong,  without  taking  the  trouble  to 
prove  it  by  a  reference  to  the  facts  of  slavery  ;  and 
he  almost  ignored  the  evil  consequences  of  slavery 
to  the  slaveholder  and  to  the  white  laborer.  Yet 


THE   POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  73 

of  all  the  anti-slavery  leaders  Chase  was  perhaps 
the  most  practical  in  making  his  principles  tell  in 
concrete  cases,  in  taking  advantage  of  slips  by  the 
enemy,  in  unwearying  effort  to  keep  the  question  of 
slavery  before  the  minds  of  his  countrymen.  Hun 
dreds  of  men  on  both  sides  liked  to  make  the  Con 
stitution  a  partner  in  their  speeches  ;  hardly  any 
other  rendered  such  services  as  Chase  in  defending 
the  victims  of  slavery  who  got  across  the  line  into 
the  free  States.  Indeed,  his  skill,  courage,  and 
power  of  constitutional  argument  made  it  possible 
for  him  to  render  the  second  of  his  great  services,  — 
the  defense  of  fugitive  slaves.  It  was  his  courage  as 
counsel  in  those  cases,  his  use  of  all  possible  legal 
technicalities  and  expedients  in  behalf  of  his  client, 
and  his  fearless  and  widely  circulated  speeches, 
which  have  made  him  best  known  as  an  anti- 
slavery  man. 

In  March,  1837,  Chase  was  called  in  as  counsel 
for  an  alleged  fugitive,  Matilda,  the  daughter  and 
slave  of  a  Missouri  planter  named  Lawrence.  She 
was  so  light  in  color  that  she  easily  passed  for 
white,  and  her  owner  treated  her  as  a  favored 
personal  attendant.  She  became  clamorous  for 
her  freedom,  and  in  May,  1836,  while  traveling 
down  the  Ohio  on  a  steamer  with  him,  she  went 
ashore  —  with  or  without  his  knowledge  —  when 
the  boat  touched  at  Cincinnati.  She  speedily 
got  employment  as  a  servant  in  the  house  of  the 
Birneys,  who  looked  on  her  as  a  white  woman  ;  but 
in  March,  1837,  she  was  seized  by  one  Riley,  in 


74  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

behalf  of  Lawrence,  and  brought  before  a  magis 
trate  for  his  certificate  that  she  was  a  fugitive. 
Chase,  already  the  intimate  friend  of  Birney,  in 
terposed  with  habeas  corpus  proceedings  before  a 
state  court,  and  argued  that  she  was  a  free  person 
because  she  had  been  brought  to  the  State  of  Ohio 
by  her  master,  and  therefore  could  not  be  "  a  per 
son  held  to  service  or  labor  in  one  State,  under  the 
laws  thereof,  escaping  into  another."  The  judge 
decided  against  the  claim  of  Matilda,  and  she  was 
remanded  into  slavery.  The  poor  girl  was  turned 
over  to  her  captors,  carried  across  the  Ohio,  and 
"  sold  down  the  river." 

To  the  pro-slavery  men  of  Cincinnati  this 
seemed  an  occasion  to  teach  the  abolitionists  a 
lesson,  and  accordingly  Birney  was  indicted  for 
"  harboring  a  slave."  He  had  indeed  known  a  few 
days  before  the  capture  that  Matilda  had  been  a 
bondwoman  ;  but  Chase,  as  his  counsel,  again  made 
the  issue  that  a  person  brought  to  the  State  by  a 
master  thereby  ceased  to  be  a  slave.  Again  the 
judge  decided  against  Chase's  contention ;  but 
Birney  appealed,  and  the  State  Supreme  Court 
reversed  the  decision.  Unfortunately,  its  action 
was  based  on  a  technicality  which  Chase  had  care 
fully  avoided  raising,  and  not  on  the  bold  principle 
of  freedom  under  the  laws  of  Ohio.  Neverthe 
less,  the  court  took  the  unusual  step  of  directing 
that  Chase's  argument  be  printed,  apparently  in 
order  to  bring  his  point  to  the  attention  of  the 
profession. 


THE  POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  75 

By  far  the  most  famous  of  the  Ohio  fugitive- 
slave  cases  was  that  of  Van  Zandt,  for  here  was  • 
raised  the  question  of  punishing  a  rescuer.  John 
Van  Zandt,  a  Kentuckian  turned  abolitionist,  had 
a  small  farm  near  Cincinnati,  and  was  known  to 
keep  a  station  of  the  Underground  Railroad. 
April  22,  1842,  a  party  of  nine  slaves,  the  property 
of  Wharton  Jones  of  Kentucky,  landed  on  the 
Ohio  side  of  the  river;  and  very  early  the  next 
morning,  as  Van  Zandt  started  from  Walnut  Hills 
to  drive  home,  he  found  the  party  of  negroes  on 
the  road.  The  testimony  did  not  bring  out  just 
what  influence  led  the  fugitives  from  the  river 
bank  to  a  place  which  a  known  abolitionist  was  to 
pass  ;  at  any  rate,  Van  Zandt  took  the  whole  party 
into  his  covered  wagon  and  proposed  to  carry  them 
out  of  danger,  and  one  of  the  slaves,  Andrew,  sat 
on  the  box  and  drove.  About  fifteen  miles  out  of 
Cincinnati,  they  were  stopped  by  persons  whom 
Chase  designated  as  "  two  bold  villains,"  who, 
although  they  had  no  authority  from  the  master  or 
from  any  one  else,  simply  carried  off  eight  of  the 
slaves  and  returned  them  to  Kentucky  ;  the  ninth, 
Andrew  the  driver,  ran  away,  and  never  was  seen 
again  by  his  pursuers.  Here  again  is  an  unex 
plained  mystery,  on  which  light  might  be  shed  by 
some  conductor  of  the  Underground  Railroad. 

O 

The  first  legal  result  of  the  affair  was  the  prosecu 
tion  of  the  "  two  bold  villains  "  for  abduction  ;  but 
the  public  prosecutor  showed  little  interest  ;  and 
according  to  Chase  they  were  "  acquitted,  more  by 


OF   THP 

UNIVEB 


76  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

the  public  sentiment  than  by  the  jury  who  rendered 
the  verdict  of  acquittal." 

The  period  was  prolific  in  slavery  suits.  In  1838 
and  1839  came  extradition  proceedings,  in  which 
Governor  Kent  of  Maine  and  Governor  Seward  of 
New  York  refused  to  surrender  "  slave  stealers  ;  " 
in  1842  the  Supreme  Court  decided  the  Prigg 
case,  involving  the  seizure  of  a  fugitive  in  Penn 
sylvania  without  recourse  to  the  courts ;  and  in  the 
same  year  Wharton  Jones,  owner  of  the  runaway 
slave  Andrew,  brought  civil  suit  in  the  federal 
courts  against  Van  Zandt,  first  to  recover  the  value 
of  Andrew  and  the  expense  of  recapturing  the 
others ;  and,  secondly,  to  recover  the  penalty  of 
$500  allowed  by  the  act  of  1793  against  a  person 
who  "  after  due  notice  harbored  and  concealed  "  a 
fugitive.  Jones's  first  suit  was  defended  by  Chase 
and  Thomas  Morris  with  great  zeal  and  skill ;  but 
in  the  first  trial,  in  July,  1842,  Judge  McLean  held 
that  Van  Zandt' s  evident  knowledge  of  the  charac 
ter  of  the  negroes  was  "  due  notice,"  and  gave 
damages  in  $1200,  which  eventually  had  to  be 
paid.  The  other  suit  for  $500  penalty  was  also 
decided  against  Van  Zandt,  and  appealed  to  the  Su 
preme  Court.  William  H.  Seward  was  now  asso 
ciated  with  Chase,  —  both  serving  without  fee,  — 
and  in  1847  they  submitted  their  arguments.  The 
court  sustained  the  decision  of  the  lower  court,  and 
Van  Zandt  was  mulcted  $1700  and  legal  expenses 
for  the  offense  of  showing  kindness  to  persons  whom 
"  he  must  have  known  "  to  be  fugitives. 


THE   POLITICAL   ABOLITIONIST  77 

None  of  Chase's  legal  arguments  ever  had  such 
vogue  as  that  presented  in  this  case  to  the  Supreme 
Court,  but  never  orally  delivered.  Notwithstand 
ing  the  careful  courtesy  of  its  language  toward  the 
Supreme  Court,  it  is  evident  that  he  had  not  the 
slightest  expectation  of  winning  his  case  :  what  he 
aimed  at  was  simply  to  put  before  the  country  a 
solemn  protest  against  making  the  free  States 
share  in  slavery.  Justice  Story  said  of  his  argu 
ment,  "It  is  a  triumph  of  freedom ;  "  and  the 
"  Law  Reporter  "  ventured  to  predict  that  "  his 
points  will  seriously  influence  the  public  mind  and 
perhaps  the  politics  of  the  country." 

After  an  introduction,  in  which  he  ventures  to 
remind  the  judges  that  several  of  them  are  them 
selves  slaveholders  and  therefore  interested  par 
ties,  Chase  first  attacks  the  averment  against  Van 
Zandt  in  its  minutest  specifications,  but  he  speed 
ily  advances  beyond  technicalities,  by  claiming  that 
the  act  of  1793  is  defective  and  does  not  cover  such 
a  case  as  Van  Zandt' s  ;  and  that  it  must  be  strictly 
construed  as  it  stands.  "  Shall  it  be  said,"  he  ar 
gues,  "  that  public  security  is  a  less  important  end, 
than  the  right  of  a  master  to  his  slave  ?  .  .  .  Will 
this  court  by  construction  attempt  to  supply  these 
defects  ?  "  He  now  calls  into  his  service  the  Or 
dinance  of  1787,  in  his  hands  a  kind  of  stage  pro 
perty  which  could  do  duty  on  all  sorts  of  occasions. 
This  time  he  makes  it  supersede  the  Federal  Con 
stitution,  as  an  unamendable  pre-agreement  which 
provides  only  for  the  return  of  fugitives  from  "  the 


78  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

original  States,"  and  relieves  Ohio  from  any  later 
fugitive  slave  law. 

Thus  far  Chase  shows  agility  rather  than  wis 
dom;  but  he  now  proceeds  to  weave  a  fabric  of 
constitutional  objections  to  the  statute  under 
which  his  client  was  prosecuted,  namely,  the  Fugi 
tive  Slave  Act  of  1793.  Here  he  is  arguing 
against  a  stone  wall ;  for  the  Supreme  Court  had 
recently  decided  in  Prigg  v.  Pennsylvania  that  the 
act  was  for  the  most  part  constitutional,  although 
the  clauses  requiring  state  magistrates  to  hold 
proceedings  were  void.  Chase,  however,  has  the 
confidence  to  assure  the  court  that  this  decision 
was  not  unanimous,  and  was  a  dictum ;  and  then 
he  uses  his  favorite  argument  that  the  Constitu 
tion  has  nothing  to  do  with  slavery,  except  in 
States  where  it  is  established  by  state  law,  and 
that  hence  of  course  there  is  no  constitutional  au 
thority  possible  for  a  fugitive  slave  act. 

The  advocate  now  becomes  more  definite,  and 
argues  specifically  that  Congress  can  under  no  cir 
cumstances  legislate  on  the  return  of  fugitives; 
that  what  the  clause  of  the  Constitution  establishes 
both  for  fugitive  slaves  and  fugitive  criminals  is 
only  "  a  treaty  obligation  —  a  covenant  or  com 
pact."  Elsewhere  in  the  argument  Chase  goes 
even  further,  by  the  bold  assertion  that  there  can 
be  no  possible  way  of  giving  to  one  of  the  parties 
in  a  controversy  the  right  to  seize  the  other  and  to 
claim  a  decision  on  ex  parte  evidence.  "  What  is 
that,"  says  he,  "  but  to  legalize  assault  and  battery 


THE   POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  79 

and  private  imprisonment?  I  say  fearlessly  that 
such  acts  of  legislation  as  this  are  subversive  of 
the  fundamental  principles  on  which  all  civil  soci 
ety  rests." 

Chase  closes  with  a  calm  but  eloquent  prediction, 
which  might  have  given  pause  to  a  court  then  on 
the  road  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision  :  "  Upon  ques 
tions  such  as  some  of  these  involved  in  this  case, 
which  partakes  largely  of  a  moral  and  political 
nature,  the  judgment,  even  of  this  court,  must 
necessarily  be  rejudged  at  the  tribunal  of  public 
opinion,  the  opinion,  not  of  the  American  people 
only,  but  of  the  civilized  world." 

The  importance  of  the  whole  argument  does  not 
lie  in  its  constitutional  cogency  or  in  its  effect  on  • 
the  government.  Chase  ventured  to  refer  to  few 
decisions,  for  both  law  and  practice  were  against 
him  ;  his  doctrine  was  unacceptable  to  the  Supreme 
Court,  and  was  rudely  ignored  by  Congress  three 
years  later,  when  a  more  obnoxious  fugitive  slave 
law  replaced  that  of  which  Chase  complained. 
The  real  significance  of  the  Van  Zandt  argument 
is  the  passionate  protest  against  making  free  men  ,, 
and  free  States  responsible  for  slavery,  even  though 
the  Constitution,  statutes,  and  practice  so  bound 
them.  The  moral  reasons  which  Chase  put  for 
ward  applied  not  only  to  the  fugitive  slave  law,  but 
also  to  legislation  for  the  District  of  Columbia  and 
to  the  organization  of  new  Territories  acquired  in 
1846  ;  and  in  the  struggle  over  the  Wilmot  Proviso 
such  arguments  as  he  used  nerved  the  abolitionists 


80  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

to  fight  to  the  bitter  end  against  slavery  in  the  Ter 
ritories. 

Between  1845  and  1849  Chase  was  involved  in 
several  other  fugitive  cases.  A  slave  named  Sam 
uel  Watson,  in  January,  1845,  went  on  shore 
from  a  steamer  lying  at  the  landing  in  Cincinnati. 
By  habeas  corpus  Chase  brought  the  case  before 
the  Ohio  Supreme  Court,  laying  stress  on  the  point 
that,  as  the  escape  was  made  within  the  low-water 
mark,  it  was  undoubtedly  in  Ohio  territory.  Judge 
Read,  however,  decided  that  a  steamer  navigating 
the  waters  of  the  Ohio  was,  so  far  as  slavery  was 
concerned,  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  southern 
shore,  though  he  showed  a  deference  to  rising  pub 
lic  sentiment  by  saying :  "  Slavery  is  a  wrong  in 
flicted  by  force  and  supported  alone  by  the  muni 
cipal  power  of  the  State  or  Territory  where  it 
exists ;  .  .  .  .  the  master  must  lose  his  slave  if  he 
brings  him  into  a  free  State."  Nevertheless  the 
abolitionists  remembered  only  that  Judge  Read 
had  returned  Watson  to  slavery,  and  in  1849  used 
their  balance  of  power  to  drop  him  from  the 
court. 

Another  case  in  1845  was  that  of  Francis  D. 
Parish  of  Sandusky,  charged  with  "  harboring  and 
concealing  "  a  slave  woman  and  her  child,  and  also 
with  "  obstructing  "  the  legal  owners  of  a  slave  by 
refusing  to  permit  the  arrest  of  the  two  negroes 
under  a  power  of  attorney  from  the  alleged  owner. 
In  spite  of  Chase's  efforts  as  counsel,  Parish 
was  convicted  and  had  to  pay  a  fine  of  a  thousand 


THE  POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  81 

dollars.  One  of  the  jurymen  afterward  wrote  to 
Chase  :  "  I  pray  God  to  hasten  the  day  when  law 
such  as  we  as  a  jury  are  called  upon  to  apply  may 
be  repealed." 

Although  Chase  was  defeated  in  every  one  of  the 
slave  cases  in  which  he  appeared  for  the  defense, 
a  natural  result  of  his  zealous  efforts  was  to  make 
him  the  friend  and  counselor  of  distressed  colored 
people  both  in  Cincinnati  and  far  and  wide  through- 
out  the  country.  A  few  examples  of  the  strange 
relations  into  which  his  reputation  brought  him 
will  throw  light  on  the  whole  institution  of  slav 
ery.  In  1840  one  John  Martin,  a  Georgia  planter, 
writes  pathetically  in  behalf  of  three  mulatto  chil 
dren  whom  he  has  sent  to  Ohio  to  be  emancipated, 
—  the  too  familiar  case  of  a  father  seeking  to  get 
his  own  flesh  and  blood  out  of  bondage.  "  You 
will  confer  a  great  favor  on  an  unfortunate  man 
to  select  good  homes  for  them,"  he  says  ;  and  he 
begs  that  one  of  the  girls  may  be  taken  by  Mrs. 
Chase  as  a  house  servant.  In  March,  1841,  Mary 
Townsend  writes  in  a  beautiful  hand  from  Oberlin, 
asking  Chase  to  learn  what  her  former  master  will 
take  for  free  papers  for  herself,  and  for  three  boys 
left  in  Kentucky.  In  September,  1841,  R.  G. 
Corwin  submits  the  case  of  Daniel  Washington, 
slave  of  Amos  Kendall,  who  was  sent  South  to  be 
sold  to  pay  some  of  Kendall's  debts,  but  came 
ashore  from  a  steamer  lying  at  Cincinnati.  Corwin 
declares  that  "  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  is  as 
free  as  the  God  who  made  him,"  and  proposes  to 


82  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

send  him  to  Canada.  In  1844  Benjamin  Stanton 
writes  from  Iowa :  "  I  think  I  heard  thee  express  a 
desire  to  get  a  case  to  test  the  constitutionality  of 
slavery,"  and  gives  details  of  such  a  case. 

In  July,  1845,  Chase's  legal  advice  is  asked  in 
the  case  of  "The  State  of  Ohio  for  the  use  of  the 
Poor  of  Washington  Township,  Preble  County, 
on  complaint  of  George  Wagoner  v.  H.  Monfort" 
Monfort  had  been  fined  for  employing  a  negro 
woman,  who  had  not  given  bond  that  she  would 
not  become  a  public  charge.  In  March,  1846, 
Chase  is  called  upon  in  behalf  of  Jerry  Finney, 
who  had  been  kidnapped  at  Columbus.  "  I  know," 
writes  his  correspondent,  "  I  need  not  invoke  your 
aid  in  this  matter,  always  being  found  ready  to 
assist  and  protect  the  poor  African."  In  April, 
1848,  a  gentleman  from  Vicksburg  asks  Chase  how 
manumission  may  be  obtained  in  a  free  State  for  a 
family  for  which  the  negro  mother  has  purchased 
freedom  at  an  expense  of  over  five  thousand  dol 
lars.  In  view  of  these  and  other  instances,  it  is 
no  wonder  that  Chase  was  called  the  "attorney- 
general  of  fugitive  slaves." 

The  colored  people  of  Cincinnati  showed  their 
gratitude  for  his  defense  of  Watson  in  1845  by 
presenting  to  him  a  silver  pitcher  ;  his  enemies 
made  much  capital  out  of  this  selection  as  the  spe 
cial  friend  of  "  the  nigger,"  and  more  out  of  his 
speech  to  the  donors,  in  which  he  boldly  stated 
the  extremest  abolition  doctrine  of  negro  suffrage 
twenty  years  before  any  political  party  would  take 


THE  POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  83 

it  up.  "  I  regard,"  said  lie,  "  the  exclusion  of  the 
colored  people  as  a  body  from  the  elective  fran 
chise  as  incompatible  with  true  democratic  princi 
ples."  The  pitcher  had  an  interesting  history. 
Later,  when  Chase  was  governor  of  Ohio,  he  used 
it  as  a  kind  of  official  punch-bowl  for  lemonade, 
to  the  wrath  of  extreme  Democrats  and  moderate 
drinkers  ;  and  eventually  it  became  an  heirloom, 
treasured  for  its  associations  with  his  anti-slavery 
career. 

Of  more  importance  to  Chase's  political  future 
was  his  position  as  a  kind  of  Western  anti-slavery 
oracle.  During  the  period  from  1840  to  1849  he 
was  in  correspondence  with  most  of  the  Western 
and  Southern  abolitionists.  W.  Aldam,  Jr.,  an 
Englishman,  furnished  him  material  on  slavery  in 
the  West  Indies ;  students  of  Lane  Seminary  in 
1843  thanked  him  for  his  statement  to  them  of  his 
views  on  slavery ;  John  Jay  began  a  correspond 
ence  which  lasted  for  many  years.  In  1844  John 
G.  Fee  and  Edgar  Needham  of  Kentucky  wrote  to 
him  describing  their  anti-slavery  efforts,  and  from 
time  to  time  thereafter  they  reported  to  him.  Fee 
was  a  minister,  the  son  of  a  slaveholder,  and  one 
of  the  sturdy  native  abolitionists  who  held  their 
ground  in  their  own  State  ;  later  he  founded  Berea 
College,  a  kind  of  Kentucky  Oberlin,  where  blacks 
and  whites  since  the  Civil  War  have  been  educated 
together.  That  Chase,  the  cold  New  Englander, 
should  be  the  friend,  adviser,  and  confidant  of 
such  men  as  Birney,  Fee,  and  Needham,  shows  the 


84  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

confidence  which  had  been  inspired  by  his  fearless 
efforts  to  give  the  negro  his  legal  rights  and  to 
defend  the  friends  of  the  slave.  From  this  time 
to  the  Civil  War,  he  was  one  of  the  men  upon 
whom  the  abolition  fraternity  called  for  advice  and 
assistance. 

With  all  his  reputation  and  all  his  friends, 
Chase  was  in  many  respects  a  lonely  man  in  Cin 
cinnati.  His  fugitive  slave  cases  brought  fame, 
but  no  fees  and  no  paying  clients ;  and  when  Bir- 
ney  and  Bailey  left  Cincinnati  he  had  no  abolition 
ist  intimate  of  strength  and  character  in  whom  he 
confided.  It  is  easy  to  look  back  through  his  life 
and  see  what  advantages  at  last  came  to  him 
through  his  steadfastness  in  this  dark  period ;  but 
at  the  time  he  was  doing  an  unpopular  service  to 
humanity. 

From  1840  to  1849  Chase  led  a  kind  of  triple 
life  :  he  had  his  private  and  professional  interests ; 
he  had  his  anti-slavery  pursuits ;  and  he  had  also 
the  great  political  task  of  organizing  the  Liberty 
and  Free-Soil  parties.  Anti-slavery  now  began  to 
play  a  part  in  Ohio  politics ;  long  before  1840  a 
few  men  in  important  offices  had  not  been  afraid 
to  be  known  as  anti-slavery  men  ;  such  were  Leices 
ter  King,  president  of  the  Ohio  Anti-slavery  Soci 
ety,  in  the  state  Senate  from  1833  to  1838 ;  Benja 
min  F.  Wade,  a  Whig,  also  in  the  state  Senate 
from  1835  to  1839 ;  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  at  first  a 
Whig,  then  abolitionist  member  of  the  national 
House  of  Representatives  from  1838  to  1861 ;  and 


THE   POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  85 

Thomas  Morris,  United  States  senator  from  1833 
to  1839. 

For  the  formation  of  a  distinct  anti-slavery  party 
in  Ohio,  and  for  the  first  national  organization,  two 
men  are  chiefly  responsible,  James  G.  Birney  and 
Salmon  P.  Chase.  The  Garrisonian  principle  of 
non-participation  never  had  much  influence  in 
Ohio,  where  all  the  abolitionist  leaders  continued 
to  vote  at  every  election  and  had  a  keen  sense  of 
what  might  be  done  by  a  proper  concentration  of 
ballots ;  but  they  were  not  always  agreed  as  to 
which  to  choose  out  of  three  possible  courses: 
whether  to  vote  only  for  candidates  who  were  of 
their  regular  party,  but  were  against  slavery;  to 
throw  their  votes  from  one  side  to  the  other,  ac 
cording  as  this  or  that  party  put  up  an  anti-slavery 
man  ;  or  to  form  a  third  party. 

The  first  of  these  methods  was  suggested  by  Bir 
ney  in  the  Ohio  anti-slavery  convention  of  1835, 
when  he  wanted  the  "  elevated  principles  of  holi 
ness  "  applied  to  politics,  and  proposed  a  pledge 
that  abolitionists  should  vote  for  no  candidate  who 
was  not  against  the  Black  Laws.  Nevertheless, 
even  such  decided  abolitionists  as  the  Oberlin  peo 
ple  continued  to  vote  the  Whig  ticket  at  election 
after  election. 

Birney  could  not  stand  still  in  his  conception  of 
political  abolitionism.  In  September,  1836,  his 
paper,  the  "Philanthropist,"  urged  abolitionists 
not  to  unite  with  either  of  the  great  parties.  The 
local  anti-slavery  societies  began  to  take  up  the 


86  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

idea  in  their  conventions,  and  in  1837  the  state 
society  voted :  "  That  it  is  time  for  the  abolitionists 
of  Ohio  to  relinquish  all  party  attachments,  and 
act  with  a  single  view  to  the  supremacy  of  the  law, 
the  inviolability  of  constitutional  privileges,  and 
the  rights  of  all."  For  a  time  the  anti-slavery 
men  contented  themselves  with  questioning  candi 
dates  as  to  their  principles  on  slavery ;  but  this 
method  broke  down  in  1838,  when  the  abolitionists 
destroyed  the  Whig  supremacy  in  the  legislature 
by  voting  for  pledged  Democrats,  only  to  see  the 
pledges  ignored  and  to  witness  the  passage  of  a 
scandalous  state  fugitive  slave  act. 

The  natural  result  was  a  general  movement 
toward  a  third-party  organization,  and  in  1839 
one  member  of  the  legislature  was  elected  as  an 
avowed  separatist  from  both  parties.  Meanwhile 
similar  movements  were  taking  place  in  other 
States ;  and  in  1840  the  political  abolitionists  in 
the  American  Anti-slavery  Society  broke  away 
from  the  Garrisonians,  and  through  an  informal 
national  organization  nominated  James  G.  Birney 
for  the  presidency,  as  the  candidate  of  the  Liberty 
party. 

Up  to  1840  Chase  had  little  to  do  with  politics, 
though  a  delegate  to  the  National  Republican  con 
vention  which  nominated  Clay  in  1832.  When 
the  election  of  1836  drew  on,  he  was  a  Whig,  and 
urged  the  nomination  of  Judge  McLean  ;  but  he 
knew  General  Harrison,  who  lived  near  Cincinnati, 
and  finally,  with  some  qualms,  voted  for  him.  In 


THE   POLITICAL   ABOLITIONIST  87 

1840  lie  showed  no  sympathy  when  his  friend  Bir- 
ney,  as  the  head  of  the  new  Liberty  party,  called 
out  the  political  anti-slavery  forces.  He  remained 
a  regular  Whig,  and  a  second  time  supported  Har 
rison  in  the  hope  that  his  candidate  would  look 
more  kindly  than  Van  Buren  on  the  efforts  against 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  The  result 
of  the  campaign  was  the  election  of  Harrison,  while 
the  Liberty  movement  proved  pitifully  weak ;  out 
of  1,500,000  votes  Birney  got  only  7000,  in  his 
own  State  of  Ohio  polling  only  903  out  of  a  total 
of  274,000. 

Thus  in  November,  1840,  Chase  was  still  a 
Whig ;  but  in  May,  1841,  he  took  an  active  part 
in  the  county  convention  of  the  Liberty  men  in 
Cincinnati.  Since  this  was  the  first  political  crisis 
in  his  life,  his  motives  deserve  critical  examina 
tion.  Schuckers,  who  got  a  strong  impression  from 
Chase  himself,  accounts  for  the  change  simply  by 
saying  that  the  Birney  movement  "  did  express  a 
conviction  that  some  form  of  organization  against 
slavery  had  become  a  political  necessity,"  and 
"  in  that  conviction  Mr.  Chase  now  joined  ; "  but 
Schuckers  also  intimates  that  Chase  looked  to  see 
an  anti-slavery  Democratic  president  in  1844,  and 
hence  he  leaves  unexplained  the  union  with  the 
Liberty  men.  Pierce,  in  his  unpublished  memoir 
(inspired  by  Chase),  lays  Chase's  change  of  front 
to  his  studies  into  the  aggressions  of  slavery,  and 
to  his  dissatisfaction  with  the  obtuseness  of  Harri 
son  and  Tyler ;  but  Chase  had  as  yet  not  worked 


88  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

out  bis  constitutional  theory,  and  in  1840-41  showed 
little  dissatisfaction  with  Harrison.  Hoadly,  in 
his  memorial  address,  says :  "  I  learn  from  Hon. 
Rufus  King,  who  was  then  a  law  student  in  his 
office,  that  Mr.  Chase  was  a  candidate  for  the 
Whig  nomination  for  state  senator,  and  was  de 
feated  in  the  nominating  convention  principally  at 
the  instigation  of  his  brother-in-law,  H.  H.  South- 
gate,  upon  the  avowed  and  open  ground  that  he 
was  an  abolitionist.  How  notice  could  have  been 
more  distinctly  given  to  Chase  that  there  was  no 
place  in  the  Whig  party  of  Ohio  for  him  or  his 
principles,  I  fail  to  see."  This  theory  might  have 
accounted  for  a  bolt  in  1840,  but  hardly  for  one  in 
1841,  after  the  election  of  Chase's  candidate  for 
the  presidency. 

Chase  himself  has  left  several  different  state 
ments  of  his  motives.  In  a  letter  to  Charles 
Simmer  of  March  9,  1849,  he  says :  "  In  1840  I 
supported  General  Harrison,  though  I  then  favored 
the  sub-treasury  system  rather  than  a  bank  of  the 
United  States.  I  supported  him  because  I  ima 
gined  that  his  administration  would  be  less  pro- 
slavery  than  Mr.  Van  Buren's.  As  soon  as  I  dis 
covered  my  mistake,  I  was  ready  to  concur  in  an 
independent  movement,  and  was  one  of  the  first 
who  took  an  active  part  in  organizing  the  Liberty 
party  in  Ohio."  Much  later,  in  1868,  he  wrote : 
"  I  was  not  a  life-long  Whig,  but  a  sort  of  inde 
pendent  Whig,  with  Democratic  ideas,  from  1830 
to  1841.  Sometimes  I  voted  for  a  Democrat,  but 


THE   POLITICAL   ABOLITIONIST  89 

more  generally  for  Whigs."  These  explanations 
are  doubtless  sincere,  but  they  do  not  cover  the 
whole  ground ;  for  when  Tyler  succeeded  to  the 
presidency  in  1841,  nobody  dreamed  that  he  was 
about  to  disrupt  the  Whig  party.  Moreover  the 
anti-slavery  Whigs  in  Ohio  at  that  time  were  by 
far  the  largest  body  of  anti-slavery  men  in  the 
State ;  in  leaving  them,  Chase  went  into  a  small 
and  feeble  party. 

The  real  reason  for  Chase's  change  of  front  may 
safely  be  inferred  from  some  scattered  and  appar 
ently  disconnected  facts.  During  the  campaign  of 

1840  Harrison  said   that  "  he  would   as  soon  ap 
point  an  abolitionist  to  office  as  anybody  else,  if 
qualified,"  and  he  chose  Chase    to  go  to    Bailey, 
editor  of   the    "Philanthropist,"   and  expostulate 
with  him  for  his  criticisms.      Numbers  of  office- 
seekers  supposed  Chase  to  be  deep  in  Harrison's 
confidence  and  asked  his  indorsement.     Early  in 

1841  Chase  took  part  in  a  meeting  at  Cincinnati 
which  urged  Harrison  to  discountenance   slavery 
in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  he  felt  himself 
in  a  position  to  justify  a  letter  to   Harrison  two 
weeks  before  his  inauguration,  urging  him  not  to 
favor  slavery  in  his   inaugural.     Harrison  wrote 
civilly   in    reply,  but   his  inaugural   took   ground 
against  any  interference  with  slavery,  and  the  slen 
der  hopes  based  upon  him  were  shattered  by  his 
death,  in  April,  1841.     A  month  later  Chase  had 
forever  left  the  Whig  party,  and  had  cast  in  his 
lot  with  Birney  and  Bailey,  with  the  Oberlin  aboli- 


90  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

tionists,  with  the  Western  Keserve  supporters  of 
Giddings. 

It  is  plain  that  Chase  held  to  the  Whig  party 
up  to  1841  on  the  chance  of  being  able  to  exert  a 
personal  influence  over  Harrison.  So  far  as  the 
Whig  "  principles "  were  concerned,  Chase  had 
come  to  see  that  the  old  Jacksonian  issues  of  the 
bank  and  the  tariff  were  moribund,  and  hence  his 
natural  sympathies  were  with  the  Democrats  ;  but 
that  party  in  Ohio  in  1840  enacted  a  state  fugitive 
slave  law  at  the  demand  of  the  government  of  Ken 
tucky.  As  a  member  of  either  regular  party  Chase 
must  vote  for  and  with  active  pro-slavery  men,  and 
hence  he  sought  other  alliances.  His  change  of 
party  was  a  distinct  sacrifice  of  his  material  inter 
ests,  for  most  of  the  respectable  people  in  Cincin 
nati  were  Whigs,  and  the  Liberty  party  was  very 
feeble  and  discouraged.  Chase  reluctantly  followed 
his  convictions  by  throwing  in  his  lot  with  an  un 
popular  set  of  men  engaged  in  what  seemed  a  hope 
less  crusade. 

From  this  time  to  the  election  of  1860,  Chase 
preserved  an  undying  distrust  and  hatred  of  the 
Whig  party,  and  often  of  Whigs  as  individuals. 
"It  is  a  party  of  expediency  and  compromise," 
he  said  in  1843  ;  "  every  vote  for  a  Whig  is  a  vote 
against  abolition."  Seward  in  1845  sent  him  a 
letter  of  protest  at  his  bitterness  against  his  former 
associates,  but  in  1850  Chase  still  made  the  con 
fident  assertion  that  the  Whigs  were  really  pro- 
slavery.  On  the  other  hand,  he  always  believed 


THE   POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  91 

that  by  a  proper  pressure  the  Democratic  party 
might  be  brought  to  take  up  the  anti-slavery 
cause. 

The  accession  of  Chase  was  a  great  joy  to  the 
Liberty  men,  for  hitherto  they  had  been  weak  in 
the  southern  part  of  the  State,  and  had  lacked 
tacticians.  At  once  he  was  seized  upon  for  tasks 
in  which  he  showed  great  skill :  he  could  write  in 
spiring  addresses  ;  he  could  organize  conventions 
and  get  them  to  do  their  work  in  his  way  ;  it  was 
his  vigor  and  snap  which  made  the  Ohio  Liberty 
party  the  most  efficient  of  the  political  abolitionist 
organizations  in  the  whole  country  during  the  next 
six  years.  Issues  were  plenty :  the  Ohio  Black 
Laws,  which  had  so  far  stood  against  all  attacks  ; 
the  right  of  petition  to  Congress ;  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia ;  the  slave  trade ;  fugitive 
slaves  and  kidnapping;  after  1842  the  Texas  ques 
tion  ;  and  after  1846  the  territorial  question  and 
the  "Wilmot  Proviso. 

Within  a  year  after  his  conversion  Chase  had 
become  practically  the  leader  of  the  Liberty  party 
in  Ohio,  and  for  eight  years  he  continued  his 
work  of  organizing  conventions,  preparing  party 
addresses,  bolstering  up  the  Liberty  press,  and  com 
forting  distressed  brethren,  with  the  result  that 
the  party  had  an  encouraging  growth  within  its 
small  limits.  In  the  state  Liberty  convention  of 
1841  Chase  was  very  active,  writing  at  this  time 
the  first  of  his  remarkable  "  Addresses."  It  was 
a  preliminary  statement  of  the  doctrine  afterward 


92  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

worked  out  in  the  Van  Zandt  arguments  of  1847, 
namely,  the  absolute  disassociation  of  the  Constitu 
tion  from  slavery  except  as  States  might  create  the 
system ;  and  it  led  up  to  a  climax  in  the  often 
quoted  sentence:  "The  honor,  the  welfare,  the 
safety  of  our  country  imperiously  require  the  abso 
lute  and  unqualified  divorce  of  the  government  from 
slavery." 

By  1842  the  question  of  the  attitude  of  the  Lib 
erty  men  in  the  presidential  election  of  1844  came 
up,  and  Chase  saw  opening  before  him  an  attrac 
tive  field  of  influence  in  the  choice  of  a  national 
Liberty  candidate.  Nearly  three  years  before  the 
election  Birney  wrote  to  Chase,  protesting  against 
the  suggested  nomination  of  Governor  Seward  un 
til  he  should  become  "  an  abolitionist  in  name,"  or 
of  John  Quincy  Adams,  "who,"  says  Birney,  "  looks 
on  the  doctrine  of  immediate  emancipation  as  held 
by  our  friends  as  ridiculous."  In  the  national 
Liberty  convention  at  Buffalo  in  1843,  Birney  was 
again  nominated  for  the  presidency  ;  but  the  con 
vention  was  carried  away  by  one  of  those  cyclones 
of  radicalism  which  gave  such  delight  to  the 
enemies  of  the  abolitionists,  and  against  Chase's 
protest  it  was  voted  that  the  fugitive  slave 
clause  of  the  Constitution  might  be  excepted  by  a 
mental  reservation  in  taking  oath  to  the  Constitu 
tion. 

The  paramount  issue  in  the  campaign  of  1844 
was  the  annexation  of  Texas.  Van  Buren  was  re 
placed  as  the  Democratic  candidate  by  Polk,  an 


THE  POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  93 

ardent  annexationist,  on  an  annexation  platform. 
Clay  received  the  Whig  nomination,  but  under  the 
pressure  of  the  campaign  wrote  letters  to  reassure 
the  Southern  wing  of  the  party,  thereby  alien 
ating  some  thousands  of  anti-slavery  Whigs.  This 
was  the  opportunity  of  the  Liberty  men,  who  alone 
stood  for  uncompromising  opposition  to  the  admis 
sion  of  slave  territory,  and  they  joyfully  received 
the  bolting  Whigs.  Nevertheless,  Birney's  total 
vote  was  but  62,000. 

Certain  charges  against  Birney  no  doubt  much 
cut  down  the  Liberty  vote  in  Ohio,  which  had  risen 
from  900  in  1840  to  2800  in  1841,  to  5400  in 
1842,  and  to  7000  in  1843 ;  but  which,  in  all  the 
excitement  of  the  presidential  year,  1844,  was  but 
8000.  In  the  pivotal  State  of  New  York,  however, 
the  Liberty  vote,  chiefly  withdrawn  from  the  Whig 
party,  was  more  than  enough  to  turn  the  scale 
against  Clay ;  and  the  result  was  the  transfer  of 
that  State,  and  thus  of  the  electoral  majority,  from 
the  Whig  to  the  Democratic  column. 

Then  and  since,  this  use  of  the  balance  of  power 
has  been  laid  against  the  Liberty  men  as  a  great 
error  of  judgment,  on  the  ground  that  within  four 
months  after  the  election  Texas  was  annexed.  But 
it  was  never  the  political  object  of  the  third-party 
men  to  put  into  office  men  or  parties  moderately 
favorable  to  themselves  :  what  they  desired  was  to 
impress  the  country  with  their  determination  to 
accept  nothing  but  the  "  denationalization  of  sla 
very."  Of  the  Polk  Democracy  most  of  them  were 


94  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

hopeless  :  they  saw  that  the  party  could  not  be  in 
clined  to  their  cause  whether  they  voted  with  it  or 
against  it.  The  Clay  Whigs,  on  the  other  hand, 
were  supposed  to  be  more  friendly  to  anti-slavery, 
and  for  that  very  reason  might  perhaps  be  coerced 
into  the  principles  of  the  Liberty  party,  if  other 
wise  they  must  be  beaten.  Such  was  the  argument 
of  the  Liberty  men,  and  it  took  ten  years  to  con 
vince  them  that  neither  of  the  great  national  par 
ties  would  ever  take  ground  which  involved  the  loss 
of  all  its  Southern  following. 

The  opportunity  for  a  political  anti-slavery  party 
seemed  at  last  to  have  come ;  in  1845  Texas  was 
annexed  ;  in  1846  the  Wilmot  Proviso  came  up ; 
in  1847  was  the  culmination  of  the  Mexican  war ; 
yet  the  vitality  of  the  Liberty  party  in  Ohio  was 
so  nearly  exhausted  that  in  1845  its  vote  fell  to 
7000,  and  though  in  1846,  on  the  local  issue  of  the 
repeal  of  the  Black  Laws,  it  ran  up  to  11,000,  yet 
in  1847  there  was  not  even  a  state  convention,  and 
only  about  4000  votes  were  polled.  Chase  himself 
was  profoundly  discouraged,  and  wrote  to  John  P. 
Hale  in  April,  1847  :  "  I  see  no  prospect  of  greater 
future  progress,  but  rather  of  less.  As  fast  as 
we  can  bring  public  sentiment  right,  the  other  par 
ties  will  approach  our  ground.  To  build  up  a 
new  party  is  by  no  means  so  easy  as  to  compel  old 
parties  to  do  a  particular  work.  ...  If  we  can 
once  get  the  Democratic  party  in  motion,  regard 
ing  the  overthrow  of  slavery  as  a  legitimate  and 
necessary  result  of  its  principles,  I  would  have  no 


THE  POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  95 

apprehensions  at  all  of  the  work  being  laid  aside 
until  accomplished." 

During  1847  the  Liberty  men  took  the  field  for 
the  campaign  of  1848,  on  the  old  straight  issue. 
Birney  was  now  out  of  public  life,  through  the 
effects  of  a  physical  accident,  and  Chase's  corre 
spondence  is  full  of  a  manager's  talk  about  candi 
dates.  In  January  he  sounds  Judge  McLean  on 
accepting  a  nomination ;  in  March  a  New  York 
abolitionist  suggests  Seward ;  in  May  Chase  pro 
poses  Judge  John  C.  Wright  of  Ohio ;  in  June  the 
chairman  of  the  New  York  Liberty  state  commit 
tee  suggests  "  Gerrit  Smith  and  Salmon  P.  Chase  " 
as  the  ticket,  and  Chase  replies  that  he  would  vote 
for  Smith  ;  in  August  H.  B.  Stanton  reports  that 
a  committee  has  waited  on  John  P.  Hale  of  New 
Hampshire,  and  that  "he  is  with  the  Liberty 
party  in  principles,  reasons,  and  feelings." 

Out  of  all  the  candidates  suggested,  Hale  was 
the  most  available.  In  1846  he  was  elected  to  the 
Senate  as  an  independent  anti-slavery  man,  though 
of  Democratic  antecedents  ;  he  was  distinguished 
for  his  keen  and  caustic  rhetoric  and  absolute  fear 
lessness.  Chase,  however,  was  more  alive  than  his 
associates  to  the  signs  of  the  times :  the  question 
of  slavery  in  the  annexed  territory  must  come  be 
fore  the  next  Congress,  and  he  had  strong  hopes 
that  the  Democratic  party  would  take  such  ground 
as  would  enable  the  Liberty  men  to  unite  with 
them.  He  therefore  urged  the  postponement  of 
the  Liberty  convention  to  the  spring  of  1848,  but 


96    %  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

he  was  overruled,  and  the  convention  met  at  Buf 
falo  in  October,  1847.  Chase  was  a  delegate,  and 
declined  a  nomination  as  vice-president  on  the  ticket 
with  John  P.  Hale,  the  nominee  of  the  convention. 

The  division  of  feeling  among  Liberty  men  was 
ominous.  In  the  spring  of  1848,  Chase  took  the 
responsibility  of  setting  a  back  fire  against  his  own 
party  by  manipulating  a  shrewd  call,  signed  by 
three  thousand  disaffected  Whigs  and  Democrats, 
for  an  "  Ohio  Mass  Free-Territory  Convention,"  to 
meet  after  the  nominating  conventions  of  the  two 
regular  parties.  Meanwhile  he  was  writing  right 
and  left  to  urge  the  suppression  of  the  national 
Liberty  ticket,  even  personally  urging  Hale  to 
withdraw,  on  the  chance  of  being  nominated  again. 

When  the  Whig  national  convention  in  May 
nominated  Taylor,  a  slaveholder  on  a  no-platform 
platform,  and  the  Democratic  convention  in  June 
nominated  Cass,  a  Northern  dough-face,  especially 
hateful  to  the  Liberty  men,  many  Whig  and 
Democratic  politicians  and  newspapers  could  stand 
neither  nomination.  In  New  York  the  anti-slav 
ery  wing  of  the  Democrats  —  the  Barnburners  — 
bolted  solidly  under  the  leadership  of  their  chief 
tain,  ex-President  Van  Buren ;  and  it  was  evident 
that  a  union  of  all  anti-slavery  men  would  again 
hold  the  balance  of  power  in  the  campaign  and 
might  carry  some  States. 

In  forming  such  a  union  no  man  had  a  more 
arduous  or  a  more  honorable  part  than  Chase. 
The  apparently  spontaneous  Ohio  mass  convention 


THE  POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  97 

of  June  21,  1848,  was  really  skillfully  engineered 
by  him  and  his  friends ;  a  thousand  delegates  en 
thusiastically  attended  ;  Chase  spoke ;  Chase  wrote 
the  admirable  resolutions  ;  Chase  prepared  the 
addresses ;  Chase  secured  the  call  for  a  national 
Free  -  Soil  convention  ;  yet  Chase  as  a  Liberty 
leader  kept  in  the  background.  On  the  same  day 
and  at  the  same  place  the  Ohio  Liberty  convention 
met  and  formally  dissolved  the  party  by  accepting 
the  proposed  Buffalo  Convention. 

For  seven  years  Chase  had  been  the  leading 
manager  of  the  Liberty  party  in  the  Northwest ;  he 
knew  the  men ;  he  prepared  the  official  addresses ; 
he  kept  in  touch  with  the  newspapers.  For  the 
second  time  in  his  life  he  had  left  his  party, 
though  it  had  a  nominee  before  the  country.  In 
his  own  mind,  and  in  fact,  his  principles  were  un 
changed,  but  he  had  found  a  new  way  of  expressing 
them  :  he  was  working  now  to  establish  a  new  kind 
of  organization,  an  "  anti-slavery  league,"  in  which 
all  the  anti-slavery  men  in  the  country  should  re 
fuse  to  vote  for  pro-slavery  men.  He  had  no  con 
fidence  in  the  Whig  party,  and  in  June,  1847,  had 
expressed  the  belief  that  the  Democracy  would  "  be 
compelled  to  take  substantially  the  ground  of  the 
Liberty  party."  It  is  plain  that  in  the  Barnburner 
bolt  he  welcomed  what  he  considered  the  evidence 
of  the  long-desired  purifying  of  the  Democratic 
conscience.  He  would,  however,  have  left  the  Lib 
erty  organization  even  if  the  Barnburners  had  re 
mained  with  the  Democrats,  for  he  saw  no  hope 


98  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

in  third-party  methods ;  a  reorganization  of  the 
friends  of  freedom,  and  a  widening  of  their  basis 
of  action,  seemed  to  him  essential. 

With  the  call  of  the  Buffalo  Convention  the 
name  "  Liberty  party  "  disappeared  and  was  never 
renewed.  The  term  "  Free-Soil "  implied  a  nar 
rower  issue,  for  it  meant  at  the  moment  no  more 
than  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  and  thousands  of  Liberty 
men  hesitated  to  give  up  their  full  principles  and 
their  identity  in  order  to  go  into  a  new  organiza 
tion.  But  the  foundations  of  the  great  deep  were 
breaking  up ;  the  public  sentiment  of  the  North 
seemed  now  overwhelmingly  in  favor  of  the  Wil 
mot  Proviso,  though  it  had  been  repudiated  by 
both  the  regular  parties ;  and  the  obvious  course 
was  to  give  the  popular  protest  an  opportunity  to 
crystallize  in  votes. 

During  July,  1848,  delegates  to  the  Buffalo  Con 
vention  were  elected  in  all  the  Northern  States, 
and  in  Delaware,  Virginia,  and  Maryland ;  and  in 
the  six  available  weeks  men  from  all  over  the 
country  asked  Chase's  counsel  as  to  the  platform 
and  the  candidates.  As  an  old  Whig,  long  a  Lib 
erty  man,  inclined  to  a  free  Democracy,  Chase 
formed  a  centre  for  the  Western  delegates.  He 
was  also  the  friend  and  correspondent  of  many  of 
the  New  York  and  Eastern  men,  especially  of  H. 
B.  Stanton  and  Charles  Sumner,  and  he  was  cer 
tain  to  be  a  power  in  the  convention.  He  had  for 
months  suggested  Judge  McLean,  uncle  of  the 
wife  whom  he  had  recently  married ;  but  he  avoided 


THE   POLITICAL   ABOLITIONIST  99 

committing  himself  to  any  candidate,  and  expressed 
a  willingness  to  accept  Hale  if  the  convention  nom 
inated  him. 

No  national  political  convention  in  the  United 
States  ever  seemed  so  spontaneous  and  so  un 
fettered  as  the  assemblage  at  Buffalo  on  August 
9-10,  1848.  An  immense  concourse  of  voluntary 
delegates  appeared ;  as  the  long-suffering  reporter 
said,  "  men  seemed  to  think  that  because  they  were 
Free-Soilers  and  had  '  left  home  to  come  up  here,' 
they  had  a  perfect  right  to  take  possession  of  any 
position,  place,  or  seat  they  might  choose."  Within 
this  unwieldy  mass  of  attendants  was  a  large  num 
ber  of  accredited  delegates  irregularly  sent  from 
sixteen  States ;  out  of  these  a  so-called  "  Commit 
tee  of  Conference  "  was  organized,  made  up  of  465 
members,  and  this  was  the  real  nominating  conven 
tion  ;  within  this  body  again  was  a  "  Committee  of 
Resolutions  "  of  48  members.  While  the  "  Con 
ference"  balloted,  the  large  so-called  "Conven 
tion  "  amused  itself  with  stump  speeches  made  by 
all  sorts  of  people,  from  Joshua  R.  Giddings  to 
"  Mr.  Bibb,  a  colored  fugitive."  The  life  and 
energy  of  the  gathering  are  set  forth  in  recent 
reminiscences  of  Dr.  Albert  Gaillard  Hart,  a  dele 
gate  from  Ohio. 

"  I  can  hardly  recall  any  public  gathering  where 
the  enthusiasm  was  so  universal  and  unbounded. 
Every  reference  to  the  determination  to  stop  the 
aggressiveness  of  slavery,  and  to  move  steadily  for 
ward  to  its  overthrow,  was  met  by  the  loudest 


100  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

response  which  thousands  of  throats  could  offer. 
On  the  second  day  in  the  afternoon  the  nomination 
convention,  of  which  I  was  a  member,  met  in  a 
Universalist  church,  not  far  from  the  convention. 
Here  Judge  Chase  presided.  I  recall  perfectly  his 
dignified  and  impressive  bearing,  his  candor  and 
fairness  in  presiding.  Benjamin  F.  Butler  of  New 
York  State,  regarded  as  Mr.  Van  Buren's  first 
lieutenant,  made  an  adroit  and  eloquent  speech  in 
favor  of  the  nomination  of  Van  Buren.  Knowing 
full  well  the  determination  of  the  North  that  slav 
ery  should  be  abolished  in  the  District  of  Colum 
bia,  and  as  well  that  Van  Buren  had  repeatedly 
declared  that  it  could  not  be  done  without  the  con 
sent  of  the  South,  he  in  that  part  of  his  speech 
exclaimed,  c  and  if  the  South  refuses  to  consent  to 
the  abolishment  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Co 
lumbia,  then  we  will  remove  the  seat  of  government 
to  the  bright  banks  of  the  Ohio.'  The  anti-slavery 
men  could  easily  carry  the  nomination.  But  here 
was  a  host  of  young,  eager,  enthusiastic  men, 
ready  and  anxious  to  enlist  under  our  banners. 
We  might  make  the  platform,  only  let  them  bring 
with  them  their  old  and  beloved  leader,  who, 
though  seventy-four  years  of  age,  had  much  of 
the  fire  of  youth,  and  would  in  time  come  up  to 
our  standards.  We  knew  perfectly  that  he  and 
the  '  Barnburners '  were  only  anxious  to  '  beat 
Cass'  and  the  Baltimore  Convention,  and  that  they 
had  no  hearty  hatred  of  slavery.  John  P.  Hale 
was  the  logical  candidate  of  the  old  guard.  But 


THE  POLITICAL  ABOLITIONIST  101 

enough  delegates  thought  it  best  to  act  upon  the 
hope  that  once  with  us  they  would  continue  to  be 
our  allies  in  the  future,  and  so  Van  Buren  was 
nominated.  At  the  ratification  meeting  of  the 
general  convention  held  that  night,  one  of  the 
speakers,  a  Barnburner,  quoted  :  — 

"  '  Now  is  the  winter  of  our  discontent 

Made  glorious  summer  by  this  sun  of  York, 
And  all  the  clouds  that  lour'd  upon  our  house 
In  the  deep  bosom  of  the  ocean  buried.' 

"  Free-Soilers  and  Barnburners,  —  few  after 
fifty  years  survive.  But  of  those  still  living  none 
can  fail  to  recall  the  fiery  wave  of  enthusiasm  and 
the  roar  of  cheering  voices  when  the  Committee  on 
Kesolutions  read  last :  '  That  we  inscribe  on  our 
banner  "  Free  Soil,  Free  Speech,  Free  Labor,  and 
Free  Men,"  and  under  it  will  fight  on  and  fight 
ever  until  a  triumphant  victory  shall  reward  our 
exertions.'  ' 

In  all  the  work  of  the  Buffalo  Convention  Chase 
was  the  leading  spirit ;  he  drafted  the  strong  reso 
lutions,  the  spirit  of  which  was  summed  up  in  the 
phrase,  "  No  more  slave  States  and  no  more  slave 
territory ; "  and  he  added  planks  advocating  na 
tional  improvements,  homestead  land  grants,  and 
a  tariff  for  revenue.  To  Chase's  influence  also  is 
due  the  choice  of  Van  Buren  as  a  candidate ;  for 
he  early  came  to  an  understanding  with  the  New 
York  men  that  they  might  name  the  candidate  if 
the  Liberty  party  might  frame  the  platform.  Chase 
probably  was  no  more  confident  than  any  one  else 


102  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

of  Van  Buren 's  change  of  heart,  but  he  had  made 
a  practical  combination,  which  he  pressed  forward 
in  a  strong  canvass.  Hale  withdrew,  and  most  of 
the  state  Liberty  organizations  were  dropped ;  but 
old  Whigs,  who  had  fought  Van  Buren  from  1828 
to  1844,  found  it  hard  to  vote  for  him.  Chase  did 
not  speak  outside  of  the  Ohio  districts,  but  for  the 
first  time  an  effort  was  made  to  reach  the  Germans, 
through  documents  and  speeches  in  their  language. 
The  election  showed  only  300,000  votes  for  Van 
Buren,  and  of  these  120,000  were  in  New  York. 
The  Free-Soil  vote  in  Ohio  was  35,000,  the  high- 
water  mark  of  the  third-party  movement  up  to 
1853.  Perhaps  because  of  this  vote  Cass  carried 
Ohio,  and  nothing  but  the  Barnburner  defection 
caused  him  to  lose  New  York ;  the  third  party  had 
apparently  succeeded  only  in  electing  a  slave 
holder.  In  the  very  close  state  election  in  Ohio, 
however,  the  Free-Soilers  had  eleven  members  of 
the  state  legislature,  and  enjoyed  the  balance  of 
power  for  the  choice  of  a  United  States  senator. 
Perhaps  Chase  had  this  result  in  mind  when  he 
wrote  to  Charles  Surnner  in  November,  1848, 
apropos  of  the  Buffalo  platform  :  "  I  should  not  be 
greatly  surprised  if  the  coming  winter  should  wit 
ness  a  union  between  the  old  Democracy  and  the 
Free  Democracy  in  our  legislature  upon  the  princi 
ples  of  that  platform." 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   ANTI-SLAVERY   SENATOR 

As  the  smoke  cleared  away  from  the  field  of 
1848,  it  became  possible  to  see  how  changed  was 
the  status  of  the  anti-slavery  movement.  The  old 
abolition  societies  and  press  had  been  losing  vital 
ity  ever  since  1841.  Their  great  mission  had  been 
to  compel  the  American  people  to  think  about 
slavery ;  and  all  the  assaults  upon  them  had  only 
brought  out  more  clearly  the  fact  that  slavery  and 
free  speech  could  not  exist  in  the  same  communities, 
and  hardly  in  the  same  federation.  They  could 
not  stave  off  the  annexation  of  Texas,  a  question 
which  presented  an  issue  far  short  of  abolition, 
but  at  the  same  time  created  anti-slavery  allies 
for  the  time  being  among  Northern  legislators  and 
party  agents.  Since  1820  not  a  foot  of  land  had 
been  redeemed  from  the  curse  of  slavery ;  while  a 
small  fraction  of  the  present  Missouri  and  all  of 
Texas  had  come  under  it.  The  fierce  contest  over 
the  Wilmot  Proviso,  from  1846  to  1850,  showed 
that  anti-slavery  was  put  on  the  defensive,  and  that, 
so  far  from  "  securing  immediate  abolition  "  in  the 
slave-holding  States,  the  system  of  slavery  was  ex 
tending  into  additional  regions  formerly  free.  Even 


104  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

the  political  abolitionists  had  in  1848  given  up  the 
sweeping  Liberty  platform,  and  had  accepted  the 
issue  of  Free-Soil  as  the  utmost  for  which  they 
would  at  that  moment  contend. 

Chase  was  one  of  the  leaders  who  saw  most  dis 
tinctly  that  the  slave  power  was  advancing,  and 
one  of  his  objects  in  furthering  a  coalition  with  the 
Barnburners  was  to  put  a  pressure  upon  Congress 
to  stand  by  the  Wilmot  Proviso ;  and  the  plain  and 
predominant  purpose  of  the  Free-Soil  coalition  was, 
in  his  mind,  to  alarm  the  Democratic  party.  He 
supposed  also  that  the  Barnburners  would  stand 
out  till  their  faction  had  forced  the  Democratic 
party  to  come  over  to  its  ground  and  thus  to  be 
come  the  party  of  liberty. 

The  union  of  Free-Soilers  and  Democrats  had 
elected  no  President.  Could  it  be  effective  in  other 
contests,  —  for  example,  in  the  choice  of  a  senator 
from  Ohio  to  succeed  William  Allen  ?  That  con 
test  included  many  complications,  but  came  down 
to  this  result :  Chase's  friends  voted  to  admit  to 
the  legislature  two  contested  Democrats,  on  condi 
tions  that  the  Black  Laws  be  repealed  ;  and  by  the 
aid  of  those  two  votes  Chase  was  elected  senator. 
Chase's  part  in  this  episode  has  been  a  subject  of 
much  controversy ;  and  the  senatorial  election  of 
1849  must  therefore  be  studied  in  its  details. 

The  first  element  in  the  struggle  was  the  "  Hamil 
ton  County  election."  A  Whig  partisan  apportion 
ment  act  of  1848  had  for  the  first  time  in  the  his 
tory  of  the  State  divided  a  county  into  electoral 


THE  ANTI-SLAVERY   SENATOR  105 

districts ;  the  object  being  to  secure  two  of  the  five 
Hamilton  County  (Cincinnati)  delegates,  who  had 
hitherto  been  all  Democrats. 

In  the  election  of  1848  the  Democrats  in  Hamil 
ton  County  refused  to  recognize  the  statute,  though 
all  the  other  districts  in  the  State  had  availed 
themselves  of  it.  Instead  they  nominated  and 
voted  for  five  candidates  as  before,  all  of  whom 
were  declared  elected  by  the  Democratic  county 
clerk.  But  the  Whigs  in  their  new  district  had  a 
majority  for  two  candidates,  who  contested  the 
seats  of  Pugh  and  Pierce,  Democrats.  It  fell  out 
that  the  state  election  was  very  close ;  the  Whig 
candidate  for  governor  had  148,666  votes  against 
148,321  for  his  opponent,  and  the  legislature  was 
not  controlled  by  either  regular  party;  while  to 
organize  the  House  the  two  disputed  votes  from 
Hamilton  County  were  necessary.  In  the  House 
of  72  members  the  returns  were  as  follows: 
Straight  Democrats,  32 ;  straight  Whigs,  30  ; 
Free-Soilers,  8 ;  contested  seats,  2 ;  but  when  it 
came  to  the  delicate  questions  of  organization  and 
the  choice  of  a  senator,  the  Free-Soilers  broke  up 
into  5  Whig  Free-Soilers,  1  Democratic  Free-Soiler 
(who  eventually  voted  with  his  Whig  brethren 
against  Chase),  and  2  Independent  Free-Soilers 
(Townshend  and  Morse).  The  Whigs,  with  the 
Whig  Free-Soilers  and  their  2  Hamilton  County 
contestants,  could  make  the  37  necessary  for  a 
quorum;  but  the  straight  Democrats,  even  with 
Pugh  and  Pierce  and  the  Democratic  Free-Soiler, 
were  at  the  start  2  short  of  the  quorum  of  37. 


106  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

In  the  confused  state  of  the  membership,  nobody 
could  predict  who  would  form  a  combination  capa 
ble  of  organizing  the  House  and  of  passing  on  the 
contested  seats.  The  Democrats,  therefore,  formed 
and  executed  the  bold  plan  of  "  rushing "  the 
lower  House,  by  coming  together  unexpectedly  just 
before  the  regular  time  of  meeting,  and  hastily 
swearing  in  Pugh  and  Pierce  and  three  straw  con 
testants,  thus  making  37  members ;  they  then  pro 
ceeded  to  elect  officers.  The  Whigs  swarmed  in  a 
few  moments  later,  swore  in  their  two  contestants 
from  Hamilton  County,  and  organized  a  House  in 
like  irregular  fashion  on  the  other  side  of  the  room. 
Day  after  day,  from  December  4  to  December  26, 
the  two  bodies  harangue^  and  voted  and  skir 
mished  side  by  side.  When  the  contest  was  all 
over,  Chase  wrote  to  Charles  Sumner  the  following 
account  of  the  breaking  of  the  deadlock  and  its 
results :  — 

"  These  opposing  claims,  and  the  bitterness  grow 
ing  out  of  the  great  question,  led  to  scenes  which 
marked  the  opening  of  the  session,  and  I  do  not 
doubt  would  have  occasioned  the  dissolution  of  the 
legislature  and  perhaps  bloodshed,  had  not  the 
Free-Soilers  intervened  as  pacificators,  Messrs. 
Townshend  and  Morse  having  been  nominated  by 
a  convention  entirely  independent  of  both  the  old 
political  parties  and  elected  in  opposition  to  the 
candidates  of  both  were  in  a  position  which  gave 
confidence  to  the  Democrats  that  their  claims  would 
be  fairly  heard  and  decided  without  adverse  pre 
possessions. 


THE  ANTI-SLAVERY  SENATOR  107 

"The  legislature  was  therefore  organized  and 
the  claim  of  the  contestants  for  the  seats  of  Hamil 
ton  County  was  referred  substantially  to  the  umpir- 
age  of  these  two  gentlemen,  for  it  so  happened  that 
all  the  other  members  were  regarded  as  committed 
to  one  side  or  the  other  and  were  equally  divided. 
Upon  the  question  of  the  prima  facie  right  of  the 
Democratic  claimants,  and  on  their  certificates, 
assuming  at  this  stage  by  common  consent  the  con 
stitutionality  of  the  division,  these  gentlemen  them 
selves  divided,  and  the  Democratic  claimants  were 
excluded  by  a  tie  vote.  The  Whig  claimants,  whose 
prima  facie  evidence  was  regarded  as  still  more 
defective,  were  excluded  by  a  majority  of  six. 
Upon  the  final  question  of  absolute  right  to  seats, 
which  depended  upon  the  constitutionality  of  the 
law,  these  gentlemen  declared  in  favor  of  the  Demo 
cratic  claimant,  who  was  consequently  admitted  by 
a  majority  of  one.  The  first  use  which  the  Inde 
pendent  Free-Soilers  (for  so  these  gentlemen  were 
distinguished  in  contradistinction  to  the  Democratic 

O 

Free-Soilers  on  one  side  and  Whig  Free-Soilers  on 
the  other),  was  to  demand  the  repeal  of  the  Black 
Laws.  The  Democrats,  having  obtained  justice  for 
themselves,  were  now  the  more  ready  to  do  jus 
tice  to  others.  The  Black  Laws  were  repealed,  the 
Democratic  votes  for  repeal  greatly  outnumbering 
the  Whig,  and  the  Whig  votes  against  repeal  out 
numbering  the  Democfatic. 

"  The  real  thing  was  the  election  of  a  senator. 
Here  the  Independents  were  again  divided.  Mr. 


108  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

Morse  preferred  Mr.  Giddings,  being  his  neighbor 
and  personal  friend.  Dr.  Townshend  preferred  me. 
The  Democratic  Free-Soilers  preferred  me.  Sev 
eral  of  the  Whig  Free-Soilers  preferred  Mr.  Gid 
dings  ;  while  the  majority  of  them  preferred  neither 
of  us,  but  wanted  a  man  more  diluted  with  Whig- 
gism  than  either  of  us.  But  neither  Mr.  Giddings's 
friends  nor  mine  would  consent  to  any  third  man 
thus  brought  forward,  and  it  was  finally  under 
stood  that,  if  the  Whigs  would  support  Mr.  Gid 
dings,  and  the  Democrats  would  not  support  me, 
my  friends  would  vote  for  him,  and  also  for  Whig 
nominees,  if  fit  and  capable  for  Supreme  Judges, 
etc. ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  that  if  the  Democrats 
would  not  support  me,  the  Whigs  would  not  sup 
port  Mr.  Giddings,  the  Whig  Free-Soilers  would 
vote  for  me  and  for  Democratic  Supreme  Judges, 
etc.  Most  of  the  Whigs  were  willing  to  go  for 
Mr.  Giddings,  but  there  were  some  who  refused  to 
go  for  him  under  any  circumstances,  and  his  elec 
tion,  therefore,  became  hopeless.  The  Democrats, 
on  the  other  hand,  had  long  regarded  me  with  favor. 
I  was  known  to  be  opposed  to  the  whole  Whig  action 
in  regard  to  the  apportionment  law,  and  I  have  lit 
tle  doubt  that,  had  I  been  a  Democrat  in  regular 
party  standing,  I  could  have  been  elected  over  any 
candidate  they  had  on  my  own  strength.  They,  there 
fore,  felt  comparatively  little  reluctance  in  coming 
up  to  my  support ;  though  ^hey  found  it  hard,  not 
only  to  go  out  of  the  ranks,  but  to  vote  for  an 
abolitionist.  Finally,  I  received  every  Democratic 


THE  ANTI-SLAVERY  SENATOR  109 

vote,  fifty  in  all ;  and  also  the  votes  of  three  De 
mocratic  Free-Soilers,  and  of  the  two  Independents, 
and  was  elected  by  a  majority  of  four.  I  did  not 
receive  a  single  vote  from  the  Whig  Free-Soilers. 
Why  they  withheld  their  votes  in  disregard  of  the 
understanding  which  my  friends  certainly  sup 
posed  to  exist  and  which  on  their  part  would  have 
been  faithfully  adhered  to  had  Mr.  Giddings  re 
ceived  the  Whig  vote  and  the  Democrats  treated 
me  as  the  Whigs  treated  him,  I  do  not  undertake 
to  explain.  Mr.  Giddings,  I  have  every  reason  to 
believe  [is]  in  no  respect  responsible  for  their 
action." 

The  above  account  is  accurate  and  candid  so  far 
as  it  goes,  but  it  minimizes  Chase's  own  part 
in  the  struggle,  a  part  for  which  he  was  then 
and  afterward  assailed  with  charges  of  unfair  or 
of  corrupt  dealing ;  Douglas,  in  the  heat  of  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  struggle,  twitted  Chase  with  com 
ing  to  the  Senate  by  "  a  corrupt  bargain  or  a  dis 
honorable  coalition."  All  the  accusations  against 
him  touch  one  or  other  of  three  points :  whether  he 
changed  his  opinion  on  the  apportionment  act  of 
1848  ;  whether  he  made  a  pretended  "  deal "  in  the 
repeal  of  the  Black  Laws  ;  and  whether  he  brought 
about  a  corrupt  agreement  between  the  Free-Soilers 
and  Democrats.  The  evidence,  when  carefully  ex 
amined,  acquits  him  on  all  three  counts,  though  it 
shows  that  he  was  the  man  who  secured  the  admis 
sion  of  Pugh  and  Pierce,  who  insisted  on  the  repeal 
of  the  Black  Laws,  and  who  practically  arranged 
the  combination  for  his  own  election. 


110  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

On  the  question  of  the  Hamilton  County  elec 
tion  Chase's  position  was  constrained,  though  not 
dishonest :  he  preferred  to  have  the  legislature  re 
peal  the  law,  and  then  call  another  election  on  the 
old  apportionment ;  but  throughout  the  discussion 
he  steadily  took  the  ground  that  the  apportionment 
of  1848  was  unconstitutional  and  that  Pugh  and 
Pierce  were  legally  elected.  Townshend  and  Morse, 
the  only  members  really  independent  of  party 
bonds,  were  both  brought  —  chiefly  through  Chase's 
agents  —  to  vote  for  Pugh  and  Pierce.  The  ar 
rangement  as  to  the  Black  Laws  was  also  due  to 
Chase's  agents ;  Chase  himself  drafted  the  repeal 
bill,  but  it  was  carried  through  by  Morse,  one  of  the 
two  Independents,  who,  before  he  gave  the  vote 
necessary  for  the  admission  of  Pugh  and  Pierce, 
demanded  and  secured  a  written  pledge  signed  by 
those  two  men  and  others,  that  they  would  vote  for 
the  long- delayed  repeal  of  the  Black  Laws. 

These  two  preliminary  measures  brought  about 
a  total  breach  in  the  little  Free-Soil  contingent.  All 
the  eight  men  in  the  House  came  from  the  West 
ern  Reserve,  where  Whig  influence  was  strong; 
hence  it  was  plain  that  in  a  Free-Soil  caucus  the 
five  men  elected  as  Free-Soil  Whigs  would  pre 
dominate,  and  that  the  votes  of  the  whole  eight 
would  be  thrown  for  some  Whig  for  senator.  After 
the  admission  of  Pugh  and  Pierce,  the  legislature 
was  about  equally  divided,  and  the  balance  of 
power  was  again  in  the  hands  of  Townshend  and 
Morse,  as  is  shown  in  the  following  table :  — 


THE  ANTI-SLAVERY  SENATOR 


111 


Demo 
crats. 

Whigs. 

Free-Soil  Whigs. 

Inde 
pendents. 

Total. 

Senate. 

18 

15 

3 

36 

House. 

35 

29 

6 

2 

72 

53 

44 

9 

2 

108 

Necessary  for  a  choice,  55. 

As  early  as  January  11,  Stanley  Matthews, 
Chase's  lieutenant,  reported  that  he  thought  he  had 
arranged  terms  with  the  Democratic  leader  on  the 
following  basis  :  "  That  it  was  very  important  that 
the  reliable  Free-Soil  members  (Townshend  and 
Morse)  and  the  Democrats  should  cooperate  toge 
ther  ;  that  to  that  end,  Pugh  and  Pierce  should  be 
admitted  to  seats  in  the  contest,  to  justify  which, 
the  Democrats  will  assist  in  your  election  to  the 
U.  S.  Senate,  provided  that  in  other  matters  of 
office  the  Democrats  shall  have  the  two  supreme 
judges,  the  presiding  judgeship  in  Hamilton  County 
and  other  Democratic  counties,  the  Free-Soil  men 
to  have  their  own  selection  in  the  other  counties." 
In  the  end  the  Democrats  came  up  to  the  plan 
sketched  by  Matthews  and  approved  by  Chase.  On 
January  22  the  struggle  of  nearly  three  months 
was  ended  by  the  choice  of  Chase  as  senator,  every 
Democrat  voting  with  Townshend  and  Morse  to 
make  the  necessary  majority  of  55. 

Of  few  fiercely  contested  senatorial  elections  are 
there  such  intimate  accounts.  Besides  the  reminis- 


112  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

cences  of  Morse,  and  of  A.  G.  Riddle,  the  leader 
of  the  Free-Soilers,  we  have  the  reports  of  Chase's 
envoys,  Eli  Nichols  and  Stanley  Matthews,  as  well 
as  Chase's  private  letter-books  and  diaries.  In  the 
whole  transaction  Chase  had  nothing  to  conceal. 
He  began  in  November,  1848,  to  work  up  his 
candidacy;  he  was  glad  to  be  acceptable  to  the 
Democrats  through  his  attitude  on  the  Hamilton 
County  question ;  but  he  is  fully  borne  out  in  his 
own  claim  :  "I  will  not  say  that  by  the  counsels  I 
gave  last  winter  I  was  uninfluenced  by  personal 
considerations ;  but  I  can  say  that  I  do  not  believe 
that  I  was  influenced  by  such  considerations  in  any 
extraordinary  degree.  Certainly  I  neither  modified 
nor  compromised  in  any  way  my  political  principles. 
I  made  no  pledges,  came  under  no  obligations 
which  at  all  impair  my  absolute  independence  of 
party  restraint." 

When  Chase  took  his  seat  in  the  Senate  at 
Washington,  March  4,  1849,  he  was  beginning  his 
first  service  as  a  public  officer  of  the  State  or  of 
the  nation.  In  his  own  mind  he  was  the  repre 
sentative  of  the  anti-slavery  forces  of  the  West, 
and  at  the  same  time  was  to  take  a  powerful  part 
in  reshaping  the  Democratic  party.  An  early  and 
unwelcome  lesson  was  the  evidence  of  his  own 
insignificance  in  the  eyes  of  nearly  all  his  fellow 
members ;  to  his  colleagues,  with  one  or  two 
exceptions,  he  came  as  a  member  of  a  small  and 
very  disagreeable  third  party,  elected  by  an  acci 
dent,  and  likely  to  follow  Giddings's  exasperating 


THE  ANTI-SLAVERY   SENATOR  113 

tactics  of  dragging  the  slavery  question  into  de 
bate  when  respectable  people  were  tired  of  it. 

So  far  as  the  spread  of  sound  doctrine  went,  the 
Senate  was  the  place  for  a  man  of  Chase's  con 
victions  and  ability  of  statement ;  and  Sumner 
predicted  that  he  would  "trouble  Calhoun  on 
the  slavery  question  more  than  any  others."  Chase 
took  an  early  opportunity  to  arouse  the  Southern 
members  by  a  direct  attack ;  his  maiden  effort  in 
debate,  in  January,  1850,  was,  as  he  said,  "  intended 
only  as  a  first  attempt  on  a  small  scale  by  way  of 
feeling  my  way.  It  stirred  up  the  Southerners 
wonderfully."  He  was  quickly  cooled  and  dis 
armed  by  the  lack  of  sympathy  among  his  col 
leagues.  To  a  confidant  he  wrote  :  "  You  .  .  .  know 
how  much  we  need  men  in  Congress.  There  is 
not  one  in  the  Senate  who  is  willing  to  adopt  and 
carry  out  a  systematic  plan  of  operations  against 
the  slave  power  except  myself.  Hale  is  a  first-rate 
guerrillist.  Seward  is  a  Whig  partisan,  though, 
perfectly  reliable  on  any  vote  where  our  questions 
are  concerned,  and,  independent  of  his  Whiggism, 
a  noble  fellow.  Hale  has  no  love  for  the  Demo 
cracy.  I  alone  sympathize  with  the  Democrats  on 
general  questions  and  push  out  my  Democratic 
principles  to  their  anti-slavery  application.  If  I 
had  four  more  men  who  held  the  same  relation  to 
the  Democratic  party  in  the  Senate,  the  days  of 
doughfacery  would  be  numbered." 

In  the  course  of  his  term  Chase  and  Hale  were 
reinforced  by  two  other  anti-slavery  men:  Wade 


114  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

came  from  Ohio  in  1851,  as  an  anti-slavery  Whig, 
but  the  two  senators  always  felt  that  their  State 
was  not  large  enough  to  hold  both  of  them ;  Sum- 
ner  came  also  in  1851  by  a  Free-Soil  Democratic 
combination  ;  already  a  warm  friend  and  frequent 
correspondent  of  Chase,  he  became  his  most  inti 
mate  coadjutor,  but  never  an  aid  in  his  parlia 
mentary  struggles.  It  was  not  until  the  great  con 
flict  over  Kansas-Nebraska  that  other  Whigs  and 
Democrats  —  Hamlin,  Fessenden,  Seward,  Everett, 
—  came  forward  and  joined  in  the  onslaught  on 
slavery.  In  the  House  during  1849-51  there  were 
less  than  a  dozen  Free-Soilers.  Chase  enumerated 
Wilmot  and  Howe  of  Pennsylvania,  King  of  New 
York,  Allen  of  Massachusetts,  Booth  of  Connecti 
cut,  Tuck  of  New  Hampshire,  Durkee  of  Wis 
consin,  Root  of  Ohio,  and,  last  but  first,  Giddings. 

The  parliamentary  side  of  Chase's  senatorial  ca 
reer  was  a  painful  disappointment  to  him.  When 
the  time  came  for  forming  the  committees,  in  De 
cember,  1849,  his  case  was  duly  considered  by  the 
Democratic  caucus,  and  nearly  all  the  Northern 
senators  proposed  to  recognize  him  as  one  of  them 
selves  by  giving  him  a  chairmanship  of  a  good 
committee  ;  but  Southern  men  objected  ;  and  when 
the  "  slate  "  was  made  known,  out  of  the  one  hun 
dred  and  twenty-two  committee  places  there  were 
none  for  Chase  and  none  for  Hale.  A  little  later 
Chase  was  put  on  the  insignificant  Committee  on 
Revolutionary  Claims.  In  1851,  although  he  en 
rolled  himself  in  the  official  list  as  a  "  Democrat," 


THE   ANTI-SLAVERY   SENATOR  115 

he  had  only  one  committee  appointment ;  and  in 
1852  neither  Chase,  Seward,  nor  Hale  had  any 
committee  places,  except  as  later  they  were  called 
to  fill  vacancies.  By  the  next  year,  however,  Chase 
had  won  a  position  for  himself,  and  in  the  appoint 
ments  for  1853-55  he  had  three  places. 

This  cavalier  treatment  showed  a  radical  differ 
ence  of  opinion  between  the  regular  Democrats  and 
Chase  as  to  his  political  status.  In  his  own  mind 
he  had  created  a  "  Free  Democracy,"  or  "  Free-Soil 
Democracy,"  or  "  Independent  Democracy,"  in 
which  the  great  principles  of  the  old  party  were 
acknowledged,  such  as  the  sub-treasury  and  free 
trade ;  and,  in  addition,  he  expected  soon  to  see  the 
principle  of  anti-slavery  accepted  by  the  regular 
Democracy.  Hence  he  said  in  July,  1849 : 

"I  am  a  Democrat,  and  I  feel  earnestly  solici 
tous  for  the  success  of  the  Democratic  organization 
and  the  triumph  of  its  principles.  The  doctrines 
of  the  Democracy  on  the  subjects  of  trade,  currency, 
and  special  privileges  command  the  entire  assent 
of  my  judgment.  But  I  cannot,  while  boldly  as 
serting  their  principles  in  reference  to  those  sub 
jects,  shrink  from  their  just  application  to  slavery." 
He  did  not  blink  the  probable  effect  of  the  new 
policy  on  the  party.  "Let  it  be  so,"  he  said. 
"  The  compensation  will  be  found  in  the  concen 
tration,  unanimity,  and  the  invincibility  of  the 
united  Democracy  in  the  free  States.  Triumphant 
in  the  free  States,  and  strong  in  the  strength  of 
their  principles  even  in  the  slave  States,  the  Demo- 


116  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

cracy  can  elect  all  its  national  candidates,  under 
such  circumstances,  in  despite  of  all  opposition." 

Throughout  his  term  Chase  was  a  busy  and  con 
scientious  senator,  with  a  strong  sense  of  interest 
in  his  constituents  and  of  duty  to  his  State,  but 
also  with  an  energy  to  see  the  public  business  done, 
and  a  watchfulness  to  protect  the  public  treasury. 
In  the  conduct  of  public  business  Chase  showed 
a  lofty  impatience  with  delays,  with  extravagance, 
and  with  secrecy.  He  had  a  strong  sense  of  urban 
ity  in  debate,  and  held  himself  well  against  the 
numerous  attacks  made  upon  him ;  he  had  also  a 
timely  feeling  of  the  prerogatives  of  his  station,  and 
insisted  that  the  Senate  had  a  right  to  originate 
money  bills ;  but  he  came  out  strongly  against 
the  private  sessions  of  the  Senate,  and  in  1853  got 
fourteen  votes  (including  that  of  Douglas)  for 
opening  the  doors  during  executive  sessions. 

For  his  Ohio  constituents  Chase  was  a  pushing 
and  a  successful  representative  ;  he  felt  the  dignity 
of  standing  for  a  great  State  and  expressing  its 
will  on  public  questions  ;  he  also  felt  that  his  con 
stituents  were  entitled  to  share  in  the  favors  of 
the  federal  government.  Hence  he  urged  and 
secured  an  elaborate  custom-house  building,  a  ma 
rine  hospital  for  Cincinnati,  and  a  canal  around 
the  Portland  Falls  at  Louisville,  one  of  the  few 
river  improvements  which  have  proved  of  large 
benefit  to  commerce. 

The  most  serious  questions  on  which  Chase  had  to 
take  ground,  aside  from  the  issue  of  slavery,  were 


THE   ANTI-SLAVERY   SENATOR  117 

those  arising  out  of  the  public  lands.  From  the 
beginning,  immense  areas  had  been  granted,  first 
for  bounties,  then  for  state  purposes,  and  finally, 
since  about  1830,  to  States,  to  be  used  for  building 
canals.  Since  so  much  was  given,  sales  of  course 
fell  off  ;  hence  about  1850  a  new  idea  came  to  the 
front,  —  that  of  offering  public  lands  as  gifts  to 
people  who  would  settle  them  for  five  years.  Both 
Chase  and  Wade  were  among  the  most  ardent  sup 
porters  of  some  kind  of  land  grants,  and  the  Ohio 
legislature  instructed  them  to  push  the  Homestead 
Bill.  "  I  regard  the  public  lands,"  said  Chase,  "  as 
the  estate  of  the  people,  and  Congress  merely  as  a 
trustee."  In  July,  1854,  the  Homestead  question 
was  well  debated,  and  the  most  serious  objection 
against  it  was  the  incitement  to  immigration. 
Though  the  Know-Nothing  movement  had  now 
begun,  and  many  prudent  men  hedged  on  the  ques 
tion  of  inviting  in  more  foreigners,  Chase  boldly 
favored  the  admission  of  immigrants,  and  the  be 
stowal  upon  them  of  the  privileges  of  the  act ;  and 
he  also  moved  to  strike  out  the  limitation  to 
"  white  "  persons. 

The  railroad  land-grant  system,  which  began  in 
1850,  with  a  gift  to  the  Illinois  Central,  was  con 
trary  to  the  extreme  Democratic  principle  of  with 
holding  governmental  support  of  States  or  people ; 
but  when  so  ardent  a  Democrat  as  Douglas  took 
the  lead,  Chase  could  do  no  more  than  try  to  re 
duce  the  acreages  granted  and  the  privileges  given 
to  the  railroad  companies.  The  rapid  develop- 


118  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

ment  of  California  caused  an  agitation  for  a  rail 
road  to  the  Pacific,  which  took  form  in  a  bill  de 
bated  in  1852-53.  At  the  very  beginning  of  the 
discussion,  Chase  pointed  out  the  political  impor 
tance  of  the  question  as  to  whether  the  eastern 
terminus  should  be  placed  North  or  South,  and  he 
secured  what  he  afterwards  called  "  the  first  prac 
tical  measure  looking  to  the  organization  of  a 
Pacific  railroad,  which  received  the  sanction  of 
Congress  ;  "  this  was  an  appropriation  for  surveys 
to  be  made  previous  to  any  selection  of  the  route. 
In  1855  he  interested  himself  in  the  passage  of  a 
bill  for  the  construction  of  the  Pacific  railroad,  but 
it  failed  in  the  House  and  went  over  until  1862. 

As  a  member  of  a  committee  on  pensions  or 
claims  during  most  of  his  term,  Chase  was  im 
pressed  by  the  readiness  of  the  Senate  to  approve 
undeserved  claims,  and  to  tack  upon  appropria 
tion  bills  items  against  which  committees  had  re 
ported.  Hence  he  heartily  supported  the  Court  of 
Claims,  proposed  in  1850  and  finally  created  in 
1855.  In  the  annals  of  the  Senate  Chase  appears 
almost  always  as  a  critic  of  appropriation  bills  and 
as  a  mover  of  amendments  to  strike  out  doubtful 
clauses.  He  patiently  watched  and  repeatedly  ex 
posed  certain  perennial  jobs,  especially  one  involv 
ing  a  sum  of  §350,000,  inserted  year  after  year,  for 
"  Creek  depredations ;  "  he  also  blocked  an  attempt 
to  secure  the  L'Amistad  claim,  against  which  the 
Supreme  Court  had  indirectly  decided  in  1842. 
Indeed,  Chase  pushed  his  watch-dog  character  so 


THE   ANTI-SLAVERY   SENATOR  119 

far  that  he  opposed  a  new  treasury  building,  and 
succeeded  in  striking  out  a  clause  for  official  resi 
dences  for  the  Vice-President  and  heads  of  depart 
ments,  two  propositions  which  would  have  been 
very  serviceable  to  him  eight  years  later.  He  even 
spoke  against  new  water-works  for  Washington,  and 
decidedly  opposed  raising  the  salary  of  the  district 
judge  of  New  Hampshire  from  $1000  to  $1400,  on 
the  ground  that  the  State  paid  only  $1200  to  its 
supreme  judges.  No  man  can  be  perfect  in  econ 
omy,  however,  and  Chase  had  his  pet  extrava 
gance:  he  strongly  urged  an  appropriation  of 
$30,000  for  a  statue  of  America  by  Hiram  Pow 
ers,  notwithstanding  the  objection  of  a  fellow  sen 
ator,  who  bluntly  affirmed,  "I  do  not  believe  in 
buying  any  more  female  figures  on  trust."  His 
ideas  of  the  functions  of  government  in  general 
are  summed  up  in  a  speech  of  December,  1852,  in 
which  he  refers  to  "  these  principles  of  economy, 
prudence,  loyalty,  and  reform  which  distinguish 
genuine  from  false  Democracy." 

On  most  of  the  great  questions  which  came  before 
the  Senate,  Chase  rarely  made  a  formal  speech.  He 
had  his  principles  and  he  expressed  them ;  but  he 
felt  that  his  energies  belonged  to  the  cause  of  anti- 
slavery,  of  which  he  became  the  national  champion 
in  the  Senate,  as  Giddings  was  in  the  House.  Hale 
was  a  free  lance,  and  it  was  not  in  his  caustic  na 
ture  to  convince  anybody  ;  Sumner  was  not  a  tac 
tician  ;  Wade  was  no  man  to  lay  out  a  line  of 
argument  and  carry  it  through  a  long  debate; 


120  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

Seward  was,  as  Chase  said,  "first  for  the  Whig 
party."  The  watchman  on  the  wall  was  Chase ; 
the  debater  who  could  confute  Douglas  was  Chase  ; 
and  Chase  was  the  man  whose  speeches  summed  up 
the  calm  argument  of  the  unflinching  anti-slavery 
men  and  spread  it  through  the  country  in  the  crises 
of  1850  and  of  1854. 

His  first  parliamentary  experience  was  in  the 
furnace  heat  of  the  Compromise  of  1850.  We  now 
know  that  the  purpose  of  the  Mexican  war  had 
been  to  secure  California,  ancl  thus  to  extend  a 
slave  belt  across  from  the  Gulf  to  the  Pacific  ; 
therefore  the  slaveholders  felt  deprived  by  the 
California  free  constitution,  and  tricked  by  Presi 
dent  Taylor,  especially  when  he  refused  to  turn 
over  any  part  of  New  Mexico  to  Texas,  and  tried 
to  make  New  Mexico  also  a  free  State.  Indeed, 
there  was  good  constitutional  reason  for  believing 
that  in  New  Mexico  and  California  slavery  had 
already  disappeared  under  Mexican  law.  The  ques 
tion  gave  to  Chase  a  new  chance  to  present  his 
favorite  constitutional  arguments  on  slavery. 

To  the  men  of  the  South,  however,  the  issue  was 
not  one  to  be  settled  on  narrow  arguments  of  con 
stitutionality,  or  through  the  application  of  Mexi 
can  law,  or  by  hostile  majorities  in  Congress.  The 
doctrine  that  slavery  was  to  be  regulated  exclu 
sively  by  States  had  served  very  well  in  the  early 
days  of  the  republic,  when  slavery  was  an  institu 
tion  of  local  concern,  like  land  tenure  or  primo 
geniture  or  the  whipping-post.  Ever  since  1820, 


THE  ANTI-SLAVERY  SENATOR  121 

however,  slavery  had  become  consciously  a  system, 
in  the  maintenance  of  which  slaveholders  in  every 
State  and  Territory  were  interested,  for  they  were 
all  put  on  the  defensive  by  the  humanitarian  pro 
gress  of  the  world,  which  had  left  the  South  be 
hind. 

Those  writers  who  charge  upon  the  abolitionists 
the  responsibility  of  arousing  the  South  and  com 
pelling  it  to  take  the  offensive-defensive,  forget 
that  there  must  have  been  numerous  and  aggressive 
abolitionists,  unless  the  Northern  States  were  to 
remain  just  where  they  had  been  in  1750.  In 
colonial  times  the  two  sections  had  the  same  stand 
ards  of  treatment  of  inferior  and  dependent  beings  : 
they  were  both  brutal  to  apprentices,  indentured 
servants,  debtors,  prisoners,  paupers,  insane  people, 
and  slaves.  During  the  half  century  from  1775  to 
1825,  the  frank,  undisguised,  unashamed  cruelty 
of  the  eighteenth  century  gave  way  in  the  North  ; 
but  it  still  continued  in  the  South.  The  jails  and 
penitentiaries  had  been  Gehennas  everywhere  in 
1790,  and  were  such  still  in  most  of  the  Southern 
States  in  1850  ;  but  the  Pennsylvania  state  prison 
was  a  model  for  the  world.  Hence  the  cruelty  of 
slavery,  which  was  the  stock  in  trade  of  the  aboli 
tionists,  was  to  the  Southern  men  of  1850  still  a 
disagreeable  necessity  ;  they  even  invited  Northern 
friends  to  come  down  and  view  the  institution,  just 
as  Russian  officials  have  welcomed  travelers  to 
see  the  Siberian  prisons,  supposing  them  to  be  a 
normal  kind  of  prison.  But  while  intelligent 


122  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

Northern  men  admitted  the  heartlessness  of  their 
slaveholding  fathers,  the  South  positively  denied 
that  slavery  had  ever  been  cruel,  and  treated  her 
own  reformers  as  public  enemies. 

Furthermore,  the  Southerners  had  grievances 
which  to  them  seemed  to  come  of  simple  Northern 
hypocrisy.  The  abolition  efforts  to  prohibit  slavery 
in  the  District  of  Columbia  had  in  their  eyes  no 
other  purpose  than  to  degrade  them  by  setting  a 
national  disapprobation  on  a  practice  which  had 
lasted  in  Washington  half  a  century.  The  open 
defiance  of  the  fugitive  slave  laws  seemed  to  them 
not  only  a  refusal  to  carry  out  a  constitutional  obli 
gation,  but  also  an  annulment  of  regulations  with 
out  which  the  fields  could  not  be  tilled,  or  food 
prepared  for  the  family.  Hence  when  the  South 
was  asked  to  fulfill  its  constitutional  obligations  by 
proper  treatment  of  free  negroes  from  the  North 
and  from  abroad,  it  answered  simply  that  the  pre 
sence  of  slaves  in  free  States  was  not  a  menace  to 
the  lives  of  the  people,  but  that  strange  free 
negroes  in  the  South  might  be  inciting  insurrec 
tion,  and  they  could  not  be  allowed  to  go  at  large. 

Even  had  it  been  true,  as  Calhoun  and  his  fol 
lowers  alleged,  that  slavery  was  "  a  positive  good," 
the  zeal  of  the  South  to  extend  it  into  other  regions 
was  not  a  benevolent  desire  to  extend  the  positive 
good.  It  was  the  instinctive  feeling  that  slavery 
could  not  stand  in  the  face  of  the  disapprobation 
of  the  federal  government,  and  that  to  prevent 
such  disapprobation  they  must  have  more  slave 


THE   ANTI-SLAVERY  SENATOR  123 

States,  and  more  senators  and  representatives,  and 
more  electoral  votes.  Hence  the  absolute  determi 
nation  of  the  South  never  to  admit  the  principle 
crystallized  in  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  the  principle 
that  freedom  was  the  normal  condition  of  annexed 
territory. 

Against  the  compact  forces  of  slavery,  with  their 
perfect  understanding,  was  opposed,  in  the  Con 
gress  of  1849-50,  a  disorganized  and  temporary 
coalition  of  anti-slavery  Whigs  and  Democrats  who 
hated  and  distrusted  each  other  and  could  not 
stand  side  by  side,  while  many  Northern  Demo 
crats  and  some  Northern  Whigs  were  ready  to  vote 
with  the  South.  Into  this  controversy  came  Chase, 
then  forty-one  years  old,  an  able  speaker  and 
abler  reasoner,  and  full  of  the  force  of  conviction. 
On  January  10,  1850,  he  took  occasion  to  say  that 
no  menace  of  disunion  could  move  the  anti-slavery 
men  from  their  path;  he  declared  that  the  true 
Democratic  principles  were  those  of  the  Ordinance 
of  1787,  which  included  the  prohibition  of  slavery 
in  the  Territories.  Butler  of  South  Carolina  had 
already  prepared  himself  to  crush  the  upstart,  and 
now  read  one  of  Chase's  letters,  which  was  plainly 
a  prophecy  that  the  Democratic  party  must  eventu 
ally  shake  off  its  Southern  membership  and  become 
sectional.  Chase  made  no  reply ;  and  two  weeks 
later  Butler  accused  him  of  drafting  the  resolution 
of  1843,  described  above,  approving  "  mental  reser 
vations"  in  an  oath  to  the  Constitution.  Chase 
absolutely  denied  authorship  of,  or  adhesion  to,  the 


124  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

resolution,  but  was  evidently  timid  of  measuring 
strength  with  Butler. 

These  were  skirmishes  preliminary  to  the  great 
debate  on  the  Compromise.  February  2  Chase 
wrote  to  a  friend :  "  You  have  seen  Clay's  Com 
promise  resolutions  —  sentiment  for  the  North, 
substance  for  the  South  —  just  like  the  Missouri 
Compromise  —  all  that  is  in  issue  given  up  by 
the  non  -  slaveholders  —  unsubstantial  concessions 
of  matters  not  in  issue  by  the  slaveholders.  The 
great  discussion  is  evidently  near  at  hand,  and  I 
must  speak.  Well,  I  have  broken  the  ice,  though 
all  circumstances  have  conspired  to  prevent  any 
adequate  preparation  on  my  part.  I  will  speak. 
Perhaps  the  sling  and  the  five  stones  from  the 
brook  will  again  avail  against  Goliath." 

It  was  impossible  for  Chase  to  understand  that 
the  Compromise  was  already  decided,  since  the 
agreement  of  Clay  and  Webster  meant  the  effect 
ive  coalition  of  the  Southern  Whigs  and  Northern 
"  Cotton  Whigs."  Even  Webster's  "  Seventh  of 
March  speech,"  to  which  Chase  listened  with  an 
indignation  set  forth  in  a  letter  of  that  date  to 
Sumner,  was  virtually  an  announcement  that  the 
Senate  would  vote  for  the  Compromise,  and  that 
there  was  no  combination  of  anti-slavery  men  in 
the  House  which  could  stand  out. 

The  two  great  speeches  against  the  Compromise 
were  Seward's  and  Chase's.  The  two  men  had 
now  been  for  some  months  associated,  but  there 
seems  to  have  been  little  sympathy  between  them. 


THE   ANTI-SLAVERY  SENATOR  125 

In  December,  1850,  Chase  wrote :  "  I  don't  know 
what  Seward  will  do.  I  have  never  been  able  to 
establish  much  sympathy  between  us.  He  is  too 
much  of  a  politician  for  me/'  When,  in  January, 
1851,  Seward  asked  Chase's  support  for  an  anti- 
slavery  Whig  in  Ohio,  Chase  replied :  "  So  far  as 
I  could  judge  from  the  tone  of  his  friends  in  New 
York  towards  me,  I  could  not  think  that  I  appeared 
to  them  in  any  very  agreeable  light,  for  they,  espe 
cially  the  '  Tribune,'  were  in  the  habit  of  abusing 
me  without  any  stint."  Indeed,  there  was  a  strong 
contrast  between  the  two  senators,  each  in  his  first 
term:  Seward,  fresh  from  the  prestige  of  service 
as  Governor  of  New  York,  leader  in  a  powerful 
party,  protected  by  the  devices  of  Thurlow  Weed, 
the  confidant  of  the  President;  Chase,  an  acci 
dental  senator,  with  but  one  sympathetic  colleague, 
fighting  in  an  unpopular  cause.  Yet  of  the  two 
men  Chase  was  the  stronger  assailant  of  the  pro 
posed  Compromise. 

The  senator  from  Ohio  was  at  the  time  in  great 
anxiety  over  the  dangerous  illness  of  his  wife,  but 
his  speech  of  March  26-27,  1850,  is  the  best  piece 
of  work  which  he  had  as  yet  done.  With  a  modest 
allusion  to  his  own  lack  of  experience  in  debate, 
he  states  at  once  his  formidable  position  :  "  We 
have  no  power  to  legislate  on  the  subject  of  slavery 
in  the  States.  We  have  power  to  prevent  its  ex 
tension,  and  to  prohibit  its  existence  within  the 
sphere  of  the  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  the  general 
government.  Our  duty,  therefore,  is  to  abstain 


126  SALMON   PORTLAND  CHASE 

from  interference  with  it  in  the  States.  It  is  also 
our  duty  to  prohibit  its  extension  into  national 
territories,  and  its  continuance  where  we  are  con 
stitutionally  responsible  for  its  existence."  By  a 
long  historical  argument  he  aims  to  show  that  the 
fathers  of  the  Constitution,  so  far  as  they  could, 
legislated  against  slavery ;  and  then  he  points  out 
how  the  slave  power  has  possessed  itself  of  the 
federal  government,  noting,  by  way  of  illustration, 
that  the  South  has  always  had  a  majority  of  the 
judges  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  that  "  no  North 
ern  man  has  filled  the  office  of  chief  justice  during 
this  century." 

The  second  half  of  the  speech  goes  directly  to 
the  merits  of  the  various  branches  of  the  proposed 
Compromise  :  he  objects  to  the  "  Omnibus  Com 
mittee,"  and  insists  that  the  California  question 
has  already  been  settled  by  the  California  consti 
tution  ;  he  proposes  to  leave  the  question  of  the 
Texan  boundary  for  later  settlement,  and  denies 
any  obligation  to  erect  new  States  out  of  Texas  ; 
and  he  firmly  insists  on  the  recognition  of  New 
Mexico  without  slavery.  Regarding  the  District 
of  Columbia,  he  denies  that  Maryland  has  a  right 
to  require  the  continuance  of  slavery  there,  and  he 
affirms  the  power  of  Congress  to  regulate  the  inter 
state  slave  trade.  As  to  fugitive  slaves,  he  finds 
not  the  slightest  power  in  Congress  to  legislate 
concerning  them.  On  every  point,  except  the  slave 
trade  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  he  traverses  the 
Compromise  resolutions,  and  on  every  point  he  sur- 


THE  ANTI-SLAVERY  SENATOR  127 

passes  every  speaker  on  his  side  in  clear  and  cogent 
statement  of  the  constitutional  reasons  for  his  con 
victions,  in  insight  into  the  real  purposes  of  the 
slave  power,  and  in  a  firm  stand  against  disunion. 

At  the  time  this  speech  was  delivered  the  seri 
ous  questions  before  the  Senate  had  narrowed  down 
to  two,  —  a  new  fugitive  slave  law,  and  the  status 
of  slavery  in  New  Mexico,  including  the  Texan 
boundary.  To  these  two  questions  Chase  addressed 
himself  in  his  highest  strain.  He  cited  the  histori 
cal  precedents  for  the  power  of  Congress  to  pro 
hibit  slavery  in  the  Territories ;  he  called  to  witness 
the  state  legislatures  which  had  instructed  nearly 
half  the  senators  to  vote  for  the  Wilmot  Proviso ; 
and  he  relentlessly  followed  out,  point  by  point, 
Webster's  declaration  "  that  he  would  not  take 
pains  to  reaffirm  an  ordinance  of  Nature,  nor  to 
reenact  the  will  of  God."  "  Sir,"  exclaimed  Chase, 
"  I  should  like  to  know  what  laws  we  are  to  reen 
act  if  we  are  not  to  reenact  the  will  of  God  —  the 
rights  of  human  nature  are  not  derived  from  human 
law.  Men  are  '  created  equal,'  they  are  '  endowed 
by  their  Creator  with  inalienable  rights.'  Aggres 
sions  upon  these  rights  are  crimes."  As  to  the 
national  exclusion  of  slavery  from  the  Territory, 
Chase  took  ground  which  was  abundantly  justified 
by  the  experience  of  the  next  ten  years  :  "  So  long 
as  a  powerful  and  active  political  interest  is  con 
cerned  in  the  extension  of  slavery  into  new  Terri 
tories,"  said  he,  "  it  is  vain  to  look  for  its  exclusion 
from  them  except  by  positive  law."  Furthermore, 


128  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

he  drew  from  Southern  senators  the  statement  that 
in  their  view  a  master  had  the  same  right  to  take 
slaves  into  a  Territory  as  to  take  any  other  pro 
perty  thither,  and  that  the  federal  government  was 
bound  to  protect  such  slave  property. 

In  the  light  of  later  history,  Chase's  argument  is 
sound  and  convincing  ;  but  he  recognized  that  the 
question  was  not  wholly  one  of  constitutional  right, 
and  that  there  was  a  possibility  of  Southern  action 
contrary  to  law  or  reason.  Webster  had  made  a 
splendid  apostrophe  to  union,  much  dulled  by  his 
opinion  that  the  Union  was  in  no  danger.  Chase 
took  higher  ground  :  "  The  South  will  dissolve  the 
Union !  This  cry,  Mr.  President,  neither  aston 
ishes  nor  alarms  me.  Shall  we  yield  to  the  outcry  ? 
For  one,  I  say,  Never  !  In  my  judgment,  it  is  time 
to  pause.  We  have  yielded  point  after  point ;  we 
have  crowded  concession  on  concession,  until  duty, 
heroism,  patriotism,  shame,  demand  that  we  should 
stop.  .  .  .  We  of  the  West  are  in  the  habit  of 
looking  upon  the  Union  as  we  look  upon  the  arch 
of  Heaven,  without  a  thought  that  it  can  ever  decay 
or  fall." 

Upon  the  critical  question  of  slavery  in  New 
Mexico,  the  radical  men  on  both  sides  demanded 
some  explicit  statement.  On  June  3  Jefferson 
Davis  raised  the  direct  issue  by  moving,  "That 
nothing  herein  contained  shall  be  construed  to  pre 
vent  said  territorial  legislature  passing  such  laws 
as  may  be  necessary  for  the  protection  of  the  rights 
of  property  of  any  kind  which  may  have  been,  or 


THE  ANTI-SLAVERY   SENATOR  129 

may  be  hereafter,  conformably  to  the  Constitution 
and  laws  of  the  United  States,  held  in  or  intro 
duced  into  said  Territory."  Then  Chase  proposed 
the  searching  amendment,  "  that  nothing  herein 
contained  shall  be  construed  as  authorizing  or  per 
mitting  the  introduction  of  slavery  or  the  holding 
of  persons  as  property  within  said  Territory."  The 
issue  thus  presented  obliged  Cass  and  Douglas  to 
explain  themselves  as  to  their  theories  regarding 
the  right  of  the  people  of  the  Territories  to  govern 
themselves  ;  and  the  fierce  debate  led  to  a  test  vote 
on  Chase's  amendment  showing  21  affirmatives  (in 
cluding  both  Chase  and  Douglas)  and  36  negatives 
(including  Cass).  Although  hopelessly  beaten  by 
this  vote  of  the  Senate  on  the  main  question  of 
territorial  slavery,  Chase  continued  to  offer  amend 
ments  intended  either  to  modify  or  to  annul  offen 
sive  clauses. 

The  death  of  Taylor  made  it  possible  to  utilize 
the  majorities  hi  favor  of  the  Compromise,  and 
from  August  9  to  September  14,  the  six  successive 
compromise  bills  passed  the  Senate.  Chase  stood 
out  to  the  last,  and  on  September  18  introduced  a 
bill  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  Territories,  as  an  indi 
cation  of  his  desire  to  reopen  the  controversy  just 
settled.  But  the  solid  business  men  of  the  North, 
whose  influence  brought  statesmen  like  Webster  to 
support  the  Compromise,  were  satisfied  ;  and,  in 
deed,  a  large  majority  of  the  voters,  both  North, 
and  South,  were  glad  to  be  at  peace.  The  actual 
question  of  slavery  in  New  Mexico  seemed  and 


130  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

indeed  proved  insignificant ;  but  the  organization  of 
the  two  Territories  of  Utah  and  New  Mexico  with 
clauses  "  extending  "  the  Constitution  and  laws,  and 
promising  to  admit  them  as  States  "  with  or  with 
out  slavery  as  their  constitution  may  prescribe " 
was  a  virtual  admission  of  the  two  dangerous  prin 
ciples,  that  the  South  was  entitled  to  a  share  of 
annexed  territory,  and  that  in  all  its  portion  of 
such  territory  it  was  at  liberty  to  introduce  slavery, 
if  circumstances  permitted.  Chase  wrote  to  Sum- 
ner,  September  8,  1850 :  "  Clouds  and  darkness 
are  upon  us  at  present.  The  slaveholders  have  suc 
ceeded  beyond  their  wildest  hopes  twelve  months 
ago.  True,  some  have  demanded  even  more  than 
they  have  attained ;  but  this  extreme  demand  was 
necessary  to  receive  the  immense  concession  which 
has  been  made  to  them.  Without  it  executive  in 
fluence  and  bribery  would,  perhaps,  have  availed 
nothing.  4  Well,  what  now  ? '  I  say  with  blind 
Milton,  glorious  child  of  Freedom,  though  blind, — 

'  Bate  no  jot 

Of  heart  or  hope,  but  still  bear  up  and  steer 
Right  onward.'  " 

The  violent  rescue  of  the  fugitive  Shadrach  in 
Boston,  in  February,  1851,  gave  Chase  an  opportu 
nity  to  point  out  how  impossible  it  was  to  put  an 
end  to  discussions  on  slavery ;  indeed,  he  prophe 
sied  that  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  would  "  produce 
more  agitation  than  any  other  which  has  ever  been 
enacted  by  Congress,"  and  that  it  would  never  be 
effectively  executed.  This  summary  of  the  facts 


THE   ANTI-SLAVERY   SENATOR  131 

of  the  case  drew  upon  Chase  the  wrath  of  Dong- 
las,  whose  bold  misstatemerits  were  too  much  for 
Chase's  debating  skill.  It  also  led  Clay  to  taunt 
Chase  with  being  an  abolitionist.  Chase  replied 
with  spirit,  denying  any  connection  with  disunion- 
ists,  but  asserting  his  fellowship  with  those  "  who, 
within  the  limits  of  constitutional  obligation,  seek 
to  rescue  this  government  from  all  connection  with 
slavery." 

The  greater  part  of  Chase's  energy  during  1851 
and  1852  was  directed  to  a  vain  attempt  to  build 
up  what  he  called  the  "  Free  Democracy."  He 
made  efforts  to  support  and  encourage  newspapers 
favorable  to  his  plan,  and  especially  to  stem  the 
tide  which  was  drawing  Free-Soil  Democrats  back 
to  their  party.  On  May  30,  1851,  in  a  speech  at 
Toledo  before  a  Democratic  mass-meeting,  he  de 
clared  :  "  I  was  elected  as  a  Democrat,  recognizing 
and  well  known  to  recognize  the  duty  of  carrying 
out  Democratic  principles  in  their  practical  appli 
cation  to  every  subject  of  legislation."  But  though 
he  might  be  a  good  Democrat,  the  other  good 
Democrats  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  Chase's 
Free-Soil  friends,  and  the  tide  ran  steadily  against 
him.  In  1850  the  Ohio  Democrats  refused  to 
accept  anti-slavery  doctrines ;  yet  Chase  gave  for 
mal  notice  that  he  should  support  the  Democratic 
state  ticket  against  his  old  Liberty  friend,  Samuel 
Lewis. 

At  no  time  in  his  life  was  Chase  so  far  separated 
from  his  anti-slavery  friends  as  during  the  two 


132  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

years,  1851  and  1852 ;  and  though  he  afterward 
regained  their  confidence,  he  never  got  back  the 
feeling  of  hearty  friendship  which  would  have  been 
so  valuable  for  his  own  later  political  hopes.  In 
the  campaign  of  1852  he  was  virtually  compelled 
by  the  nomination  of  Pierce  on  a  "finality  "  plat 
form  to  join  his  old  Free-Soil  allies. 

In  the  election  of  1852  the  fortunes  of  the  Free 
Democracy  seemed  to  be  at  as  low  an  ebb  as  those 
of  Chase  himself ;  they  could  not  strike  a  respon 
sive  note  in  the  popular  mind,  and  the  Whigs,  from 
whom  more  was  to  be  expected  than  from  the 
Democrats,  were  routed.  Pierce  was  triumphantly 
elected,  and  Hale  got  only  157,000  votes,  about 
half  the  Free-Soil  vote  of  1848.  The  new  Demo 
cratic  President  at  once  surrounded  himself  by 
ultra  pro-slavery  influences,  and  made  Jefferson 
Davis  a  member  of  his  cabinet.  Nevertheless  the 
election  of  1852  showed  the  third  party  in  excel 
lent  fighting  trim,  especially  in  the  Northwest.  In 
1853  it  made  a  strong  canvass  in  the  state  elec 
tions  ;  and  in  Ohio,  where  Chase  took  an  active  part 
in  the  campaign,  it  raised  its  vote  from  32,000  to 
50,000.  A  few  far-sighted  men  saw  that  the  great 
Whig  party  was  about  to  resolve  itself  into  its  ele 
ments,  and  that  the  field  was  open  for  a  new  politi 
cal  aggregation  founded  on  the  slavery  issue. 

In  an  open  "  Letter  to  Hon.  A.  P.  Edgerton," 
dated  November  14,  1853,  Chase  showed  his  grow 
ing  despair  of  the  national  Democracy,  which  ad 
hered  to  the  Compromise  of  1850  and  especially  to 


THE  ANTI-SLAVERY  SENATOR  133 

the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  and  was  trying  to  cry  down 
the  discussion  of  slavery  everywhere.  After  that 
letter  there  could  be  no  place  and  no  hope  for 
Chase  in  the  Democratic  party.  In  the  Ohio 
state  election  of  1853  the  legislature  which  would 
elect  his  successor  to  the  Senate  showed  a  clear 
Democratic  majority,  and  in  due  time  elected 
George  E.  Pugh ;  and  Chase's  six  years'  effort  to 
influence  the  Democratic  party  was  at  an  end. 

The  Nebraska  Bill,  introduced  by  Douglas  in 
1854,  was  simply  an  attempt  to  make  good  to  the 
South  the  expected  advantages  which  had  not  ac 
crued  from  the  Compromise  of  1820 ;  that  is,  to 
give  to  the  slave  power  the  strip  west  of  Missouri, 
at  least  as  far  as  California,  in  compensation  for 
the  barrenness  of  New  Mexico ;  and  it  came  about 
at  just  this  time  because  the  great  electoral  ma 
jority  of  1852  made  the  Democratic  leaders  think 
that  no  excess  could  deprive  them  of  their  power. 
The  proposal  to  set  aside  the  Missouri  Compromise 
came  as  a  surprise  to  the  Southerners,  who  had  not 
supposed  that  the  deficiency  of  which  they  were 
beginning  to  be  conscious  could  be  made  up  with 
out  another  annexation  ;  but  it  was  just  the  kind  of 
aggressive  measure  which  Chase  and  other  aboli 
tionists  had  long  predicted.  Yet  Chase  was  as 
much  taken  aback  as  others  not  in  the  secret.  On 
December  31,  1852,  he  thought  that  the  adminis 
tration  "  would  worry  along  without  any  marked 
defeats  henceforth  ;  "  but  on  January  22,  1854,  the 
conflict  had  begun  and  he  writes :  "  Douglas,  I 


134  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

suppose  eager  to  compel  the  South  to  come  to  him, 
has  out-southernized  the  South ;  and  has  dragged 
the  timid  and  irresolute  administration  along  with 
him." 

^X  Chase's  greatest  opportunity  had  at  last  come  to 
him ;  for  in  the  Kansas-Nebraska  debate  he  was 
able  to  concentrate  all  the  previous  experience  of 
his  life.  A  fair  parliamentarian,  held  back  by  no 
party  allegiance,  already  cut  loose  from  his  con 
stituency  in  Ohio,  standing  for  the  free  Northwest 
against  the  Northwestern  champion  Douglas,  strong 
in  constitutional  exposition,  matured  by  five  years 
of  conflict  in  the  Senate,  known  far  and  wide  as  a 
fearless  political  abolitionist,  above  all  inspired  by 
seventeen  years  of  conscientious  hatred  of  slavery 
and  the  slave  power,  Chase  showed  himself  not 
only  a  bold,  sagacious,  high-minded  man,  but  also 
a  skillful  leader  of  the  unorganized  anti-slavery 
forces,  a  formulator  of  great  principles,  a  herald  of 
freedom  to  his  countrymen,  and  one  of  the  founders 
of  a  new  national  party.  His  part  in  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  contest  is  attested  by  his  chief  adver 
sary,  for  Douglas  later  said  of  him :  "In  opposi 
tion  Seward's  and  Sumner's  speeches  were  essays 
against  slavery.  Chase  of  Ohio  was  the  leader." 

The  questions  included  in  the  contest  may  be 
briefly  stated.  The  prime  object  was  to  give  to 
the  South  a  slave  State  north  of  Texas ;  but  the 
Missouri  Compromise  stood  in  the  way.  To  repeal 
that  statute  would  be  an  act  so  aggressive  that 
Douglas  invented  the  ingenious  romance  that  it 


THE   ANTI-SLAVERY  SENATOR  135 

had  already  been  "  superseded "  by  the  Compro 
mise  of  1850.  The  South  demanded  something 
more  definite ;  Douglas  introduced  a  clause  setting 
forth  that  the  Act  of  1820  had  been  "repealed" 
by  the  Act  of  1850,  and  he  took  his  stand  on  the 
"  principle  of  non-intervention,"  by  which,  he  said, 
the  people  of  a  Territory  were  left  free  to  deal  with 
the  question  of  slavery  for  themselves.  The  early 
stages  of  the  Nebraska  Bill,  therefore,  indicate 
Douglas's  attempt  to  shape  his  measure  so  as  to 
command  the  support  of  Northern  Democrats  by 
its  principle  of  the  freedom  of  territorial  voters, 
and  to  satisfy  Southern  Democrats  by  its  principle 
of  the  slavery  of  the  territorial  negro. 

On  January  4,  1854,  Douglas  reported  his  bill 
in  its  first  form,  as  a  simple  proposition  for  the 
organization  of  the  Territory  of  Nebraska ;  on 
slavery  the  bill  simply  repeated  the  uncertain 
clause  of  the  Compromise  of  1850.  In  a  second 
form,  dated  January  10,  the  bill  declared  that  all 
questions  relating  to  slavery  should  be  settled  by 
the  people  themselves  through  their  appropriate 
representatives.  The  third  form,  reported  January 
23,  divided  the  region  into  two  Territories,  and  in 
express  terms  declared  the  Missouri  Compromise 
"  inoperative,"  in  that  it  was  "  superseded  "  by  the 
legislation  of  1850.  In  its  final  form  the  bill 
contained  what  Benton  called  "  a  stump  speech  in 
jected  into  the  belly  of  the  bill," —  a  long  declara 
tion  that  the  power  over  slavery  in  the  Territories 
resided  not  in  Congress,  but  in  the  people  of  the 
Territories. 


136  SALMON    PORTLAND   CHASE 

At  every  step  there  was  constitutional,  political, 
and  moral  reason  for  opposing  this  bill  in  any  of 
its  protean  forms.  It  was  unnecessary ;  it  was 
illogical ;  it  was  inconsistent ;  it  was  founded  on  a 
falsehood ;  it  broke  faith  which  had  been  kept  a 
third  of  a  century ;  it  brought  on  a  sectional  con 
flict.  Nevertheless  it  had  elements  of  strength,  and 
was  from  the  outset  likely  to  pass.  In  the  first 
place,  some  act  organizing  the  Territory  was  neces 
sary,  and  this  was  the  bill  reported  by  the  regular 
Committee  on  Territories.  In  the  second  place, 
Douglas  was  a  terribly  hard  fighter.  He  was 
counted  the  most  dangerous  debater  in  public  life, 
because  he  had  great  power  of  bold  and  satirical 
statement,  and  that  advantage  which  the  madman 
has  over  men  cautious  for  their  own  lives,  for 
he  could  and  would  say  anything  that  was  likely 
to  be  damaging  to  an  adversary,  without  stopping 
to  ask  if  it  were  true ;  and  because  he  had  amazing 
address  in  explaining  away  any  previous  utterances 
that  might  embarrass  him ;  or,  if  he  were  cornered, 
he  would  plaintively  assert  that  he  had  explained 
these  things  so  many  times  that  it  was  insulting  to 
the  intelligence  to  repeat  his  argument.  In  the 
third  place,  Douglas  had  by  instinct  seized  upon  a 
principle  which  was  certain  to  be  popular.  The 
frontier  Territories  were  really  colonies  on  their 
way  to  become  States ;  their  legislatures,  counties, 
towns,  and  school  districts  did  actually  manage 
nearly  all  the  affairs  of  their  communities ;  it  was 
therefore  a  taking  proposition  to  say  that  they  were 


THE   ANTI-SLAVERY   SENATOR  137 

as  competent  to  settle  the  question  of  slavery  as 
were  the  States.  In  the  fourth  place,  Douglas 
early  got  the  adhesion  of  Pierce,  and  thus  secured 
a  good  part  of  the  Northern  Democrats.  The  South 
ern  Democrats  could  of  course  be  depended  upon 
to  support  a  party  measure  introduced  for  their 
benefit,  and  Douglas  confidently  and  with  good 
reason  counted  on  the  Southern  Whigs  to  aid  him. 
In  the  fifth  place,  Douglas  never  in  his  whole  life 
understood  why  men  like  Chase  and  Lincoln  were 
opposed  to  slavery ;  he  came  from  southern  Illinois, 
and  inherited  the  sentiment  of  its  early  settlers 
from  the  border  slave  States,  —  the  sentiment  that 
slavery  was  a  fact,  like  fire  or  rain  or  human 
nature,  with  good  and  bad  sides,  but  fixed  and  un 
questionable. 

Most  of  the  points  favorable  to  the  bill  were 
early  seen  by  Chase.  January  29, 1854,  he  wrote  : 
"  I  am  fully  advised  that  the  Aments  [amend 
ments]  as  they  now  stand  were  concocted  in  con 
sultation  with  Pierce,  and  that  the  administration, 
with  a  good  deal  of  trepidation,  has  resolved  to 
risk  its  future  on  the  bill  as  it  now  stands.  Many 
of  its  warm  friends  say  that  they  are  sure  to  go 
down  upon  it.  There  is  certainly  great  alarm  and 
misgiving.  Cass  told  me  to-day  that  he  was  not 
consulted  and  was  decidedly  against  the  renewal 
of  the  agitation ;  but  he  will  vote  with  the  prevail 
ing  side.  A  personal  and  near  friend  of  the  Presi 
dent's  called  on  me  to-night  and  told  me  that  Cass 
was  excluded  from  consultation.  They  want  to 


138  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

drag  him  along.  Even  New  Hampshire  wavers 
about  respecting  the  bill.  All  Kliode  Island,  ex 
cept,  perhaps,  Jones,  is  against  it.  Every  Northern 
Whig  without  exception  is  against  it.  Houston 
and  Benton  are  against  it." 

To  concentrate  the  elements  of  opposition  and 
to  lead  the  attack  on  Douglas  and  his  combination 
of  forces,  was  Chase's  task.  Among  the  most  sig 
nificant  incidents  in  the  history  of  the  measure 
are  Chase's  "  Appeal  of  the  Independent  Demo 
crats,"  Chase's  personal  controversy  with  Douglas, 
and  Chase's  amendments.  The  great  danger  was 
that  the  Nebraska  Bill  might  be  rushed  through 
both  Houses  before  the  public  sentiment  of  the 
country  could  be  brought  to  bear  or  an  opposition 
organized  in  Congress.  On  January  25,  two  weeks 
after  the  second  report  of  Douglas's  committee, 
which  disclosed  the  project  to  make  "  squatter 
sovereignty  "  the  basis  for  the  new  Territories,  there 
appeared  in  the  press  an  "Appeal  of  the  Inde 
pendent  Democrats  in  Congress  to  the  People  of 
the  United  States."  This  document,  probably 
suggested  by  John  Quincy  Adams's  "  Appeal 
against  the  Annexation  of  Texas,"  in  1842,  and 
based  on  a  draft  by  Giddings,  was  written  by 
Chase,  who  a  few  months  later  claimed  it  "  as  the 
most  valuable  of  my  works."  He  had  aimed  at 
first  to  get  the  signatures  of  Ohio  members  of  all 
parties,  and  to  address  it  to  Ohio ;  but  it  had 
taken  a  wider  range,  and  was  signed  by  Chase, 
Sumner,  Giddings,  and  Edward  Wade  of  Ohio, 


THE  ANTI-SLAVERY   SENATOR  139 

Gerrit  Smith  of  New  York,  and  De  Witt  of  Mas 
sachusetts.  The  change  of  purpose  had  delayed  it 
so  long  that,  though  dated  January  19,  it  did  not 
appear  until  the  25th  and  26th.  The  appeal  was 
at  once  taken  up  as  the  statement  of  the  free 
North.  In  terse,  brief,  vigorous  form  it  revealed 
the  real  blackness  of  the  bill,  its  violation  of  the 
compact  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  unquestioned 
for  thirty  years,  its  effect  on  free  laborers,  its  inva 
sion  of  human  rights.  A  few  extracts  will  better 
show  its  spirit  than  can  any  analysis. 

"  We  arraign  this  bill  as  a  gross  violation  of  a 
sacred  pledge ;  as  a  criminal  betrayal  of  precious 
rights ;  as  part  and  parcel  of  an  atrocious  plot  to 
exclude  from  a  vast  unoccupied  region  immigrants 
from  the  Old  World  and  free  laborers  from  our 
own  States,  and  convert  it  into  a  dreary  region  of 
despotism,  inhabited  by  masters  and  slaves.  .  .  . 

"  The  pretenses,  therefore,  that  the  territory  cov 
ered  by  the  positive  prohibition  of  1820  sustains  a 
similar  relation  to  slavery  with  that  acquired  from 
Mexico,  covered  by  no  prohibition  except  that  of 
disputed  constitutional  or  Mexican  law,  and  that 
the  Compromises  of  1850  require  the  incorporation 
of  the  pro-slavery  clauses  of  the  Utah  and  New 
Mexico  Bill  in  the  Nebraska  act,  are  mere  inven 
tions,  designed  to  cover  up  from  public  reprehen 
sion  meditated  bad  faith.  Were  he  living  now,  no 
one  would  be  more  forward,  more  eloquent,  or  more 
indignant  in  his  denunciation  of  that  bad  faith 
than  Henry  Clay,  the  foremost  champion  of  both 


140  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

compromises.  .  .  .  The  interests  of  freedom  and 
the  Union  are  in  imminent  peril.  Demagogues  may 
tell  you  that  the  Union  can  be  maintained  only 
by  submitting  to  the  demands  of  slavery.  We  tell 
you  that  the  Union  can  only  be  maintained  by  the 
full  recognition  of  the  just  claims  of  freedom  and 
man.  The  Union  was  formed  to  establish  justice 
and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty.  When  it  fails 
to  accomplish  these  ends  it  will  be  worthless,  and 
when  it  becomes  worthless  it  cannot  long  endure. 

"  We  entreat  you  to  be  mindful  of  that  funda 
mental  maxim  of  Democracy  —  EQUAL  RIGHTS 

AND  EXACT  JUSTICE  FOR  ALL  MEN.  Do  not  Sub 
mit  to  become  agents  in  extending  legalized  oppres 
sion  and  systematized  injustice  over  a  vast  territory 
yet  exempt  from  these  terrible  evils. 

"  We  implore  Christians  and  Christian  ministers 
to  interpose.  Their  divine  religion  requires  them 
to  behold  in  every  man  a  brother,  and  to  labor  for 
the  advancement  and  regeneration  of  the  human 
race.  .  .  . 

"Whatever  apologies  may  be  offered  for  the 
toleration  of  slavery  in  the  States,  none  can  be 
offered  for  its  extension  into  territories  where  it 
does  not  exist,  and  where  that  extension  involves 
the  repeal  of  ancient  law  and  the  violation  of  sol 
emn  compact.  Let  all  protest,  earnestly  and  em 
phatically,  by  correspondence,  through  the  press, 
by  memorials,  by  resolutions  of  public  meetings 
and  legislative  bodies,  and  in  whatever  other  mode 
may  seem  expedient,  against  this  enormous  crime. 


THE   ANTI-SLAVERY   SENATOR  141 

"  For  ourselves,  we  shall  resist  it  by  speech  and 
vote,  and  with  all  the  abilities  which  God  has  given 
us.  Even  if  overcome  in  the  impending  struggle, 
we  shall  not  submit.  We  shall  go  home  to  our 
constituents,  erect  anew  the  standard  of  freedom, 
and  call  on  the  people  to  come  to  the  rescue  of  the 
country  from  the  domination  of  slavery.  We  will 
not  despair;  for  the  cause  of  human  freedom  is 
the  cause  of  God." 

Although  in  form  the  address  was  directed  against 
the  slave  power  in  general,  its  spirit  was  a  denun 
ciation  of  the  men  who  were  responsible  for  it ; 
indeed,  the  third  report  of  Douglas's  committee, 
January  23,  had  caused  Chase  to  wait  a  day  in  or 
der  that  he  might  add  a  hasty  postscript,  in  which 
he  used  such  harsh  language  as  the  occasion  justi 
fied.  The  "  superseding "  clause  he  called  "  a 
manifest  falsification  of  the  truths  of  history  —  Mr. 
Douglas  himself  never  advanced  such  a  pretense 
until  this  session.  .  .  .  Will  the  people  permit  their 
dearest  interests  thus  to  be  made  the  mere  hazards 
of  a  presidential  game,  and  destroyed  by  false 
facts  and  false  influences  ?  " 

That  Douglas  was  the  one  responsible  force  in 
bringing  forward  this  bill  no  one  doubted,  least  of 
all  Douglas  himself.  Four  years  later  he  said  to 
his  autobiographer,  Cutts :  "  I  refer  you  to  my 
speeches  in  the  Senate  for  the  whole  argument  on 
the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act.  I  passed  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Act  myself.  I  had  the  authority  and 
power  of  a  dictator  throughout  the  whole  contro 


142  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

versy  in  both  houses.  The  speeches  were  nothing. 
It  was  the  marshaling  and  directing  of  men  and 
guarding  from  attacks  and  with  a  ceaseless  vigi 
lance  preventing  surprise."  Hence  Douglas  must 
have  expected  hard  knocks,  and  was  prepared  to 
defend  himself  by  one  of  his  usual  savage  attacks. 

January  30,  Douglas  came  into  the  Senate  in  a 
reckless  fury,  crying :  "  Our  motives  are  arraigned 
and  our  characters  calumniated  —  coarse  epithets 
are  applied  to  me  by  name.  .  .  .  This  was  done 
on  the  Sabbath  day  and  by  a  set  of  politicians,  to 
advance  their  own  political  purposes,  in  the  name 
of  our  holy  religion."  He  declared  that  Chase 
had  "  violated  all  the  rules  of  courtesy  and  propri 
ety  ; "  and  when  Chase  disclaimed  offense,  Douglas 
added  :  "  It  may  be  that  I  shall  be  able  to  nail  that 
denial,  as  I  have  the  statements  which  are  over 
his  own  signature,  as  a  bare  falsehood."  With 
his  usual  hawk-like  keenness,  Douglas  fixed  upon 
Chase,  as  an  evidence  of  bad  faith,  an  erroneous 
statement  made  by  some  New  York  papers ;  though 
at  the  same  time  he  did  not  hesitate  to  interpolate 
words  into  his  own  quotations  from  the  "  Appeal." 

This  study  of  legislative  billingsgate  is  necessary, 
because  it  was  the  first  time  that  Chase's  hon 
esty  had  been  questioned  in  the  Senate,  and  be 
cause  behind  the  vituperation  of  Douglas  was  a 
method,  —  an  attempt  to  transfer  the  discussion 
from  the  objections  against  the  bill  to  the  objectors 
themselves,  and  thus  to  terrorize  his  opponents. 
No  man  living  enjoyed  debating  against  Douglas. 


THE  ANTI-SLAVERY  SENATOR  143 

Lincoln,  four  years  later,  was  barely  able  to  drive 
him  into  a  corner  ;  and  Chase  would  have  been 
glad  to  avoid  the  controversy.  "  I  know  the 
gigantic  stature  of  the  senator,"  said  he,  "  I  know 
the  weight  and  importance  which  he  possesses  in 
the  country  —  and  I  know  also  the  great  disad 
vantages  under  which  I  enter  into  any  controversy 
which  he  provokes."  Afterward,  indeed,  Chase 
made  a  rather  weak  attempt  to  disclaim  having 
had  Douglas  especially  in  his  mind.  "  We  spoke 
of  the  bill,"  said  he, "  and  spoke  of  its  character. 
We  said  nothing  about  the  individuals  who  were 
its  authors."  But  the  most  powerful  argument 
against  the  bill  was  its  bad  faith  ;  and  who  but 
Douglas  had  made  bad  faith  its  principle  ?  The 
next  day  the  controversy  was  renewed,  and  Chase 
was  nettled  into  saying :  "  I  expect  no  courtesy 
and  desire  none  from  the  senator  from  Illinois." 
Douglas  later  recovered  his  temper  and  made  over 
tures  of  peace,  but  the  proud  Ohio  statesman  could 
not  forget  the  assault  upon  him. 

Issue  was  at  once  joined  in  both  Senate  and 
House  on  the  merits  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill, 
and  for  many  weeks  the  attention  of  the  whole 
country  was  given  to  the  debate.  By  amendments 
offered  February  3  and  supported  by  a  long  and 
able  speech,  Chase  singled  out  two  minor  yet  vital 
questions ;  namely,  whether  the  Compromise  of 
1850  did  in  fact  "  supersede  "  the  Compromise  of 
1820,  and  whether  the  territorial  legislature  was 
really  expected  to  have  full  control  over  slavery. 


144  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

To  the  first  point  Douglas  directed  all  his  formida 
ble  powers,  for  it  was  his  policy  to  avoid  the  role 
of  a  disturber  of  the  peace.  The  second  point  was 
distinctly  brought  out  by  Chase  in  the  clause  usu 
ally  called  "  the  Chase  amendment,"  "  under  which 
the  people  of  the  Territories,  through  their  appro 
priate  representatives,  may,  if  they  see  fit,  prohibit 
the  existence  of  slavery  therein."  This  was  a 
direct  test  of  the  sincerity  of  Douglas's  doctrine 
of  popular  sovereignty.  Without  such  a  clause,  as 
Chase  showed,  the  legislature  was  left  subject  to 
a  governor's  veto  and  to  the  construction  of  judges 
appointed  by  the  President.  Douglas  could  not  be 
brought  to  meet  this  question  squarely.  He  was 
satisfied  to  leave  to  the  territorial  government 
powers  "subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States ; "  for  he  knew  as  well  as  Chase  that  a 
favorite  Southern  doctrine  was  that  under  the  Con 
stitution  neither  Congress  nor  a  territorial  legisla 
ture  could  interfere  with  any  master  who  chose  to 
take  his  slave  into  a  Territory.  Chase's  amend 
ment  was  therefore  voted  down,  10  to  36  ;  and  in 
like  manner  was  treated  every  one  of  his  amend 
ments  intended  to  make  the  territorial  government 
more  popular,  —  such  as  his  proposals  to  let  the 
people  elect  their  territorial  officers,  to  create  only 
one  Territory  instead  of  two,  and  to  extend  the  suf 
frage  to  aliens  who  had  declared  their  intention  of 
becoming  citizens. 

So  far  as  the  Senate  was  concerned,  the  result 
was  from  the  first  predetermined,  for  Douglas  must 


THE  ANTI-SLAVERY  SENATOR  145 

have  known,  on  January  24,  that  he  had  more  than 
a  majority.  But  the  country  had  become  aroused, 
and  by  the  time  the  Senate  came  to  a  vote,  on 
March  3,  Chase  was  at  the  head  of  a  compact 
body  of  strong  men,  Whigs  and  Democrats.  Hale 
was  now  out  of  the  Senate ;  but  Chase's  colleague, 
B.  F.  Wade,  stimulated  by  the  overwhelming  sen 
timent  of  Ohio,  came  to  his  aid  with  a  coarse  but 
effective  rhetoric,  resembling  that  of  Douglas. 
Seward  also  entered  the  lists  against  Douglas,  care 
fully  confining  himself  to  the  repeal  of  the  Com 
promise  of  1820  ;  and  Walker  and  Dodge  of  Wis 
consin,  and  Fessenden  of  Maine  took  valiant  part 
in  the  debate.  For  two  days,  March  2  and  3,  there 
was  a  running  fight,  in  which  Douglas  showed  his 
immense  powers,  silencing  his  opponents  right  and 
left,  and  returning  with  the  most  furious  language 
to  his  attack  on  Chase,  unblushingly  twisting  his 
own  record,  and  insisting  over  and  over  again  that 
the  Compromise  of  1850,  though  in  its  terms  ap 
plying  to  New  Mexico  and  Utah,  was  intended  to 
repeal  the  Missouri  Compromise,  which  applied  to 
the  Louisiana  purchase.  Chase  was  no  match  in 
debate  for  this  extraordinary  man,  and  on  the  test 
vote,  March  3,  the  bill  passed  the  Senate  by  37 
to  14. 

The  fate  of  the  measure  now  depended  on  the 
House,  in  which  Chase's  counsels  and  magazine 
of  arguments  were  useful ;  but  he  had  no  such  in 
fluence  as  that  of  Douglas,  who  carried  half  the 
Democrats  with  him,  lobbied  on  the  floor  of  the 


146  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

House,  and  passed  the  bill  by  a  majority  of  108  to 
100.  On  its  return  to  the  Senate,  Chase  made  his 
last  speech  on  the  subject,  presenting  a  calm  view 
of  the  real  purpose  of  the  bill,  —  the  perpetuation 
of  the  slave  power,  —  and  predicting  that  so  far  as 
the  new  Territory  was  concerned  the  South  would 
lose  in  the  end,  because  this  Territory  would  be 
colonized  by  men  from  the  free  States. 

Wade  truly  said  :  "  The  humiliation  of  the  North 
is  complete  and  overwhelming.  No  Southern  enemy 
of  hers  can  wish  her  deeper  degradation."  In 
1846  most  of  the  Northern  States  had  favored  a 
prohibition  by  Congress  of  slavery  in  every  Terri 
tory  in  the  Union  except  in  the  Indian  Territory ; 
in  1854  Northern  Democrats  opened  to  slavery 
every  Territory  then  existing  or  to  be  annexed. 
Slavery,  instead  of  decaying  by  the  slow  process  of 
emancipation,  for  which  many  slaveholders  had 
once  hoped,  had  resisted  every  attempt  made  to 
check  it  by  national  action,  and  was  now  advancing 
into  free  regions. 

The  North  was  beaten,  but  it  was  aroused. 
From  the  "Appeal  of  the  Independent  Demo 
crats  "  in  January  to  the  passage  of  the  act  in  May, 
there  had  been  a  succession  of  public  meetings 
which  threatened  political  ruin  to  Northern  mem 
bers  of  Congress  who  should  side  with  Douglas,  and 
which  sent  out  addresses,  protests,  and  memorials. 
For  example,  John  Jay  wrote  to  Chase  on  February 
7  :  "  We  accept  the  gauntlet  thus  thrown  down  to 
the  free  States.  I  am  ready  for  the  fight  between 


THE  ANTI-SLAVERY   SENATOR  147 

Slavery  and  Freedom.  .  .  .  We  swear  for  ourselves, 
and  will  teach  the  oath  to  our  children,  never  again 
to  enter  into  a  truce  with  such  an  accursed  and 
faithless  power,  —  but  to  fight  on  and  to  fight  ever, 
until  Congress  has  gone  to  the  farthest  limit  of  its 
power  for  the  extinction  of  slavery  and  the  slave 
trade  —  and  the  Constitution  has  been  so  amended 
as  to  leave  us  free  from  all  responsibility  for  the 
devilish  system." 

Jay  and  the  thousands  of  anti-slavery  men  like 
him,  both  old  abolitionists  and  recent  converts,  had 
to  be  organized  before  their  importance  could  be 
felt  in  Congress  and  in  the  state  administrations. 
In  the  last  hours  of  the  final  debate  Chase  pointed 
out,  and  Douglas  anathematized,  the  inevitable  po 
litical  result  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act.  Chase 
declared  that  the  Whig  party  was  rent  in  twain, 
and  that  the  Northern  wing  was  about  to  unite 
with  the  Independent  Democrats  in  a  new  party. 
Douglas  replied  in  his  fiercest  vein,  declaring  that 
such  a  coalition  meant  "  civil  war,  servile  war,  and 
disunion.  I  do  not  hesitate,"  he  exclaimed,  "  here 
in  the  presence  of  its  leaders  and  confederates,  to 
denounce  the  scheme  as  involving  treason  in  its 
most  revolting  form.  I  accept  your  challenge ; 
raise  your  black  flag ;  call  up  your  forces  on  the 
Constitution,  as  you  have  threatened  it  here.  We 
will  be  ready  to  meet  all  your  allied  forces."  With 
that  challenge  and  reply  the  discussion  of  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  ended  in  the  Senate,  and 
the  Republican  party  began. 

To  Chase  the   end   of   his  term  as  senator,  in 


148  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

March,  1855,  was  a  disappointment.  In  his  six 
years  he  had  gradually  become  a  power  in  that 
conservative  body,  and,  notwithstanding  his  anti- 
slavery  principles,  he  appears  to  have  carried  away 
with  him  the  respect  of  all  his  colleagues  except 
Douglas ;  even  Soule,  most  ardent  of  the  fire- 
eaters,  had  a  personal  regard  for  him.  Though 
Chase  never  could  learn  the  quickness  and  adroit 
ness  which  made  Seward  and  Hale  such  formidable 
debaters,  he  knew  how  to  argue,  and  especially  how 
to  state  great  principles  in  a  popular  form.  The 
"  New  York  Evening  Post "  said  of  him,  at  the  end 
of  his  term  :  "  We  always  counted  on  his  opposi 
tion  to  a  corrupt  or  extravagant  expenditure  or 
appropriation  ;  and  we  could  always  depend  on  his 
cooperation  to  restrain  action  of  the  federal  gov 
ernment  within  its  proper  sphere."  On  all  the 
phases  of  the  slavery  question  he  was  the  senator 
who  cared  most  about  it,  and  who  therefore  never 
yielded  or  compromised.  When  he  left  the  Senate 
there  was  no  one  to  take  his  place,  for  Seward  and 
Wade  and  the  other  leaders  of  the  new  Kepubli- 
can  party  had  the  caution  of  chieftains,  showing 
a  willingness  to  yield  a  part  of  their  platform  if 
they  could  get  the  rest.  In  his  career  in  the  Sen 
ate  Chase  showed  that  lack  of  imagination  in  things 
political  which  was  a  characteristic  throughout  his 
life.  What  seemed  to  him  reasonable  he  thought 
must  have  equal  weight  in  other  minds  ;  but  he 
also  showed  his  other  dominant  characteristic,  —  a 
consciousness  of  moral  responsibility  in  his  politi 
cal  service. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   REPUBLICAN   GOVERNOR 

THE  reason  for  the  existence  of  the  political  abo 
litionists  was  that  slavery  was  a  political  question, 
was  a  vital  question,  and  must  eventually  become 
the  basis  of  a  division  into  national  parties.  The 
new  economic  conditions  of  the  country  so  far 
caused  the  disappearance  of  old  party  issues  that 
the  low  revenue  tariff  of  1846  was  in  the  fifties 
accepted  by  the  whole  country,  the  Bank  was  no 
longer  urged  by  anybody  of  influence,  and  though 
people  squabbled  over  land  grants,  internal  im 
provements,  and  homestead  laws,  none  of  these 
questions  were  tenets  of  party  faith.  Ever  since 
the  debates  on  the  annexation  of  Texas,  however, 
the  issues  which  really  interested  voters  and  occu 
pied  party  leaders  brought  in  some  phase  of  the 
slavery  question.  The  Liberty  men  seized  upon  a 
live  issue,  took  definite  ground  upon  it,  and  had 
reason  to  expect  that  large  numbers  would  come 
out  from  the  old  parties  to  join  them.  Hence  the 
new  life  and  the  elasticity  shown  in  the  elections  of 
1853,  when  the  Free  Democrats  became  aware  that 
the  Whig  party  was  at  last  moribund. 

Among  the  Whigs  some  strong  anti-slavery  men, 


150  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

like  Seward,  were  always  allowed  to  remain  in 
regular  standing  with  their  party  ;  but  the  Demo 
crats  deliberately  crushed  out  that  element  in  their 
party  by  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill.  Douglas  prob 
ably  expected  to  see  the  loss  of  voters  through 
the  secession  of  Northern  Democrats  made  good 
by  the  adhesion  of  Southern  Whigs  ;  and  though 
he  was  shrewd  enough  to  foresee  a  combination  of 
the  bolting  Democrats  with  the  Northern  Whigs 
and  the  handful  of  organized  Free  Democrats,  he 
relied  on  branding  such  a  coalition  as  a  "  sectional 
party ;  "  and  his  inability  to  understand  the  moral 
indignation  against  slavery  caused  him  to  under 
estimate  the  number  of  Democrats  who  would  not 
accept  any  further  extension  of  slavery. 

The  Kansas  -  Nebraska  Bill  was  therefore  the 
shock  which  started  a  new  process  of  party  crystal 
lization.  While  the  debate  was  in  progress,  con 
ventions  of  "  Anti-Nebraska "  men  began  in  the 
Northern  States ;  and  the  passage  of  the  act,  May 
30,  1854,  increased  the  excitement,  and  stimulated 
a  formal  organization  of  political  anti-slavery  men. 
In  various  Northern  States,  members  of  Congress 
and  men  at  home  united  in  calling  local  conven 
tions  to  nominate  state  and  congressional  candi 
dates  for  the  elections  of  1854.  The  Michigan 
convention,  held  at  Detroit,  July  6, 1854,  took  upon 
itself  the  name  of  the  Republican  party,  already 
several  times  used  by  local  gatherings.  The  new 
title  was  assumed  by  the  Ohio  anti-Nebraska  con 
vention  of  July  13,  and  during  the  campaign  Repub- 


THE   REPUBLICAN  GOVERNOR  151 

lican  organizations  were  formed  in  all  the  other 
Northern  States.  In  this  great  movement  Chase 
had  a  large  part,  perhaps  larger  than  that  of  any 
other  one  man.  He  describes  his  action  in  his  own 
State  as  follows :  "  Immediately  after  the  passage 
of  the  Nebraska  Bill  I  prepared  a  call  for  a  con 
vention  in  Ohio  to  organize  a  4  Democracy  of  the 
people'  in  opposition  to  the  servile  Democracy. 
Wade  joined  me  in  a  letter  inviting  signatures, 
and  the  letter  and  call  were  sent  to  ...  Ohio ; 
but  a  movement  for  a  similar  convention,  less  defi 
nite  in  object,  .  .  .  superseded  that  which  we  pro 
posed." 

This  movement  at  once  proved  its  popularity. 
Though  Pierce  had  13,000  majority  in  Ohio  in 
1852,  the  election  of  1854  showed  a  Republican 
majority  of  80,000  ;  the  congressional  delegation 
of  1853  was  12  Democrats,  6  Whigs,  and  3  third- 
party  men,  but  every  member  elected  in  1854  was 
an  anti-Nebraska  man.  Some  States,  including 
Massachusetts,  elected  Anti-Nebraska  state  offi 
cers  ;  and  in  the  congressional  election  nearly  all 
the  Northern  Douglas  Democrats  in  the  House  lost 
their  seats,  and  a  clear  anti-Nebraska  majority  was 
chosen  for  the  national  House,  which  would  assem 
ble  in  1855.  Such  was  the  reply  of  the  country  to 
Douglas's  principle  of  squatter  sovereignty. 

From  Chase's  own  statements  it  is  plain  that 
during  1854  he  had  not  yet  rid  himself  of  the 
belief  that  a  purified  Democracy  was  the  party  of 
the  future ;  he  could  not  understand,  and  never 


152  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

did  clearly  understand,  the  importance  of  choosing 
a  new  name  and  making  a  new  party  in  which 
Whigs,  Democrats,  and  Free  Democrats  might  all 
join  without  feeling  that  they  were  accepting  the 
designation  or  the  principles  of  former  political 
enemies.  In  December,  1854,  he  still  calls  himself 
an  "  Independent  Democrat,"  and  says :  "  In  the 
recent  election  in  Ohio  I  entered  heartily  into  the 
People's  movement,  which  was  nothing  more  or 
less  than  a  cooperation  of  Liberal  Democrats,  In 
dependent  Democrats,  and  Whigs,  for  the  election 
of  reliable  slavery  prohibitionists  to  the  next  Con 
gress  and  of  rebuking  the  pro-slavery  action  of 
the  administration  party."  By  cooperation  Chase 
meant  temporary  fusion  rather  than  a  consolidated 
party. 

Three  influences  combined  to  waken  Chase  from 
the  delusion  that  there  could  be  a  Democratic  anti- 
slavery  party :  these  were  the  rise  and  fall  of  the 
Native  American,  or  Know-Nothing  party,  his 
nomination  for  governor  of  Ohio  in  1855,  and  the 
Kansas  troubles.  The  Know-Nothings  began  to 
come  up  as  the  Whigs  disintegrated ;  they  formed 
a  convenient  rallying  point  for  Northern  and 
Southern  Whigs,  who  liked  to  act  together  and 
were  willing  to  take  common  ground  against  the 
foreigner ;  and  as  their  success  in  the  state  elec 
tions  of  1854  and  early  1855  seemed  to  promise 
them  continuance  as  a  national  party,  thousands  of 
ardent  anti-slavery  men  went  into  their  organiza 
tion.  Chase,  however,  by  nature  and  education 


THE   REPUBLICAN   GOVERNOR  153 

was  opposed  to  distinctions  founded  merely  on  race 
or  birthplace,  and  in  dignified  and  spirited,  al 
though  cautious,  terms  expressed  his  lack  of  sym 
pathy  with  the  movement  in  a  private  letter  to  Dr. 
Paul,  December  28,  1854. 

"  For  one,"  he  says,  "  I  wish  to  see  this  People's 
movement  go  on  in  the  liberal  spirit  which  has 
thus  far  characterized  it.  But  if  it  is  to  be  under 
stood  that  the  Know-Nothings  who  participated  in 
it  will  henceforth  ignore  the  anti-slavery  element 
or  support  no  candidates  who  are  not  members  of 
their  order,  or  whose  nominations  are  not  dictated 
by  them,  those  who  regard  the  slavery  question  as 
of  paramount  importance  and  whose  principles 
will  not  allow  them  to  become  members  of  Know- 
Nothing  associations,  must  of  necessity  assume 
an  antagonistic  position.  If  this  conflict  shall 
arise,  it  is  plain  that  the  People's  movement 
cannot  go  on  or  must  go  on  without  the  Know- 
No  thing  cooperation.  It  becomes  the  friends  of 
Liberty  to  be  prepared  for  every  event.  ...  I 
cannot  take  upon  myself  any  secret  political  obli 
gations.  I  cannot  proscribe  men  on  account  of 
their  birth.  I  cannot  make  religious  faith  a  polit 
ical  test."  .  .  . 

February  21, 1855,  Chase  expressed  himself  with 
more  freedom :  "  There  is  not  in  my  opinion  the 
slightest  reason  to  believe  that  the  ultra-Nativism 
and  anti-Catholicism  imputed  to  the  Know-Nothings 
will  be  permanent  characteristics  of  any  great  polit 
ical  party.  Just  as  little  reason  is  there  to  think 


154  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

that  secrecy  can  be  maintained  as  a  vital  element 
of  political  organizations.  I  do  not  therefore  share 
the  apprehension  which  some  of  the  best  friends  of 
Liberty  sustain  in  respect  to  the  Know-Nothing 
movement." 

Chase's  power  of  political  organization,  narrowly 
successful  in  the  senatorial  election  of  1849,  now 
brought  to  him  a  new  dignity.  In  July,  1855,  he 
was  nominated  by  the  Anti-Nebraska  Republican 
convention  for  the  governorship  of  Ohio.  Among 
the  "  Gome-Outers,"  Chase  still  stood  as  a  Demo 
crat,  and  among  the  old  Whigs  he  was  still  looked 
upon  as  a  renegade ;  hence  the  decision  in  both 
nomination  and  election  lay  with  the  Know- 
Nothings,  who  gave  him  to  understand  that  he 
might  have  their  nomination  only  by  joining  their 
order.  For  several  months  negotiations  went  on, 
with  a  view  to  securing  both  Know-Nothing  and 
Republican  support;  and  the  letter  to  Dr.  Paul, 
of  December,  1854,  was  published  in  June,  1855, 
to  show  the  kindly  feeling  of  Chase  toward  good 
Know-Nothings  who  were  opposed  to  slavery,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  make  clear  to  the  Germans 
that  he  had  not  bowed  the  knee  to  the  anti-foreign 
Baal.1 

1  A  letter  of  J.  M.  Ashley,  under  date  of  May  9,  urges  Chase 
to  omit  a  paragraph  and  otherwise  to  revise  the  letter ;  with 
these  changes,  he  says,  "  there  can  be  no  doubt  in  our  minds  of 
its  placing  you  far  in  the  ascendency  of  Seward  or  any  other  man 
in  the  United  States."  Ashley  said  that  the  changes  would  not 
affect  the  principles  of  the  letter.  There  is  no  evidence  to  show 
that  Chase  consented  thus  to  appear  to  have  said  what  he  did  not 


THE   REPUBLICAN   GOVERNOR  155 

In  spite  of  all  these  efforts,  the  Independent 
Democrats  and  Republicans  called  separate  con 
ventions.  The  old  Whigs  offered  Chase  the  nom 
ination  as  state  supreme  judge,  but  he  insisted  on 
an  anti-slavery  platform  and  a  fair  division  of  the 
ticket  as  the  condition  of  fusion  with  the  Know- 
No  things.  The  critical  date  was  July  13,  when  a 
"  People's  Convention,"  in  part  made  up  of  Know- 
Nothings,  assembled  at  Columbus  and  nominated 
Chase  for  governor.  The  old  Whigs  nominated 
Trimble,  a  Know-Nothing ;  and  the  old  Democrats 
nominated  Joseph  Medill. 

Chase  looked  upon  his  nomination  as  a  public 
protest  against  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com 
promise,  and  in  the  campaign  which  followed  he 
made  one  of  his  most  arduous  and  effective  tours 
of  stump-speaking.  In  this  triangular  campaign, 
the  attitude  of  the  Germans  became  a  matter  of 
great  importance ;  they  had  usually  preferred  the 
Democratic  party  in  the  Northwest,  especially 
after  the  forced  emigration  of  some  of  the  ablest 
and  most  liberal  of  their  countrymen,  in  1848,  for 
acting  as  democrats  in  Germany.  Hence  it  was  a 
delicate  matter  for  Chase  to  hold  both  the  native 
American  and  the  German  vote.  On  election  day 
the  vote  was  as  follows :  Chase,  146,000,  Medill, 
131,000,  Trimble,  24,000.  Ford,  candidate  for 
lieutenant-governor,  got  13,000  more  votes  than 

say ;  but  as  this  is  the  only  approach  to  untruthf illness  discovered 
in  Chase's  political  life,  it  has  seemed  desirable  to  state  the  facts 
upon  it. 


156  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

Chase  on  the  same  ticket ;  yet  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  Chase  was  the  strong  element  in  the 
political  combination.  The  effects  of  this  election 
were  far-reaching  :  in  1855  the  anti-Nebraska 
movement  seemed  to  lose  elasticity,  and  State  after 
State  went  back  to  the  Democracy ;  it  was  Chase 
who  stemmed  the  tide,  held  the  third  State  in  the 
Union,  strengthened  the  national  party  for  the 
election  of  1856,  and  retained  his  place  as  one  of 
the  official  leaders  of  the  Republican  party. 

When  he  was  inaugurated  as  governor  of  Ohio, 
in  January,  1856,  the  State  was  no  longer  the 
frontier  community  of  the  earlier  days,  for  which 
a  canal-boat  was  thought  to  be  a  proper  emblem 
on  the  great  seal  of  the  commonwealth.  Coal 
mining,  long  important,  had  become  a  large 
industry  since  1845,  when  bituminous  coal  was 
first  used  in  Ohio  for  smelting  iron ;  the  State  was 
now  bound  together,  east  and  west,  north  and 
south,  by  lines  of  railroad  ;  Cincinnati  and  Cleve 
land  had  become  manufacturing  cities  ;  and  the 
population  had  been  much  altered  by  Irish  and 
German  immigration.  In  national  affairs  Ohio 
was  beginning  to  assume  a  position  as  a  central 
and  pivotal  State ;  indeed,  one  Northwestern  presi 
dent,  Harrison,  had  been  an  Ohio  man,  and  Ewing, 
Corwin,  and  Lewis  Campbell  were  leaders  in  Con 
gress. 

The  chief  magistrate  of  Ohio,  however,  might 
still  be  described  by  a  phrase  which  Chase  had  used 
twenty-five  years  earlier  in  his  History  of  Ohio,  — 


THE  REPUBLICAN  GOVERNOR  157 

"  The  governor  is  a  name  almost  without  mean 
ing."  Without  a  veto  power,  with  very  small 
powers  of  appointment,  with  little  official  ceremony 
or  prestige,  the  ablest  governors  had  few  oppor 
tunities  to  affect  the  destiny  of  their  State,  and 
many  chances  to  make  blunders.  The  governor 
could  not  control  other  state  officers  elected  on  the 
same  ticket  with  himself,  and  yet  was  certain  to  be 
held  responsible  for  their  faults. 

Chase  was  not  cut  out  for  a  popular  governor. 
While  in  the  Senate  he  had  been  accused  of  cold 
ness,  aloofness,  and  lack  of  human  instincts, 
although  his  sense  of  his  own  uprightness  and  his 
belief  in  his  clearness  of  judgment  had  been  much 
chastened  by  his  first  four  years  in  that  body. 
Now,  as  a  renowned  champion  of  freedom,  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life  chosen  to  an  important  office 
by  popular  vote,  one  of  the  defenders  of  the  cause 
in  Kansas,  a  sage  in  his  own  party,  Chase  found 
himself  almost  in  a  new  atmosphere,  and  had 
already  begun  to  muse  upon  that  picture  of 
"  President  Chase  "  which  came  back  to  his  mind 
every  year  during  the  rest  of  his  life. 

The  lack  of  "personal  magnetism"  did  not 
prevent  him  from  making  an  excellent  governor. 
His  small  patronage  was  skillfully  fostered,  and 
the  Germans  had  full  recognition.  Of  his  policy 
in  state  affairs  he  says  later :  "  I  at  once  addressed 
myself  to  the  duties  of  my  new  position.  I  sought 
to  promote  all  practicable  reforms ;  encouraged, 
by  all  the  means  in  my  power,  the  interests  of 


158  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

education ;  endeavored  to  reorganize  the  military 
system  of  the  State ;  and  omitted  no  opportunity 
of  making  the  voice  of  Ohio  heard  on  the  side  of 
freedom  and  justice.  At  the  same  time,  I  endeav 
ored,  as  far  as  practicable,  to  conciliate  opposition 
founded  on  misapprehension,  and  succeeded  finally 
in  organizing  a  compact  and  powerful  party,  based 
on  the  great  principles  of  freedom  and  free  labor." 

There  was  plenty  of  opportunity  for  a  man  to 
make  his  influence  felt  in  such  matters.  He 
reformed  the  militia  system,  which  was  in  such  a 
condition  that  a  refusal  to  issue  arms  to  other  than 
uniformed  companies  was  regarded  as  an  inno 
vation  ;  he  took  much  interest  in  securing  a 
geological  survey  of  the  State ;  he  advocated  a 
bureau  of  statistics  ;  he  urged  better  opportunities 
for  the  state  university  and  for  common  schools  ; 
and  he  busied  himself  in  founding  a  railroad  com 
mission.  This  last  suggestion  came  from  an  early 
foresight  as  to  the  power  likely  to  be  acquired  by 
great  corporations  through  the  control  of  all  the 
transportation  upon  a  large  area.  Chase  was  one 
of  the  earliest  statesmen  to  see  this  danger  and  to 
try  to  provide  against  it. 

Hardly  had  the  new  governor  begun  his  service 
when  the  election  of  1856  again  called  out  his 
greatest  energy.  The  national  Native  American 
party,  of  which  Horace  Greeley  had  said  that 
"  you  might  as  well  talk  of  a  national  anti-potato- 
rot  party,"  broke  up  in  February,  1856,  by  the 
secession  of  the  anti-slavery  Know-Nothings.  With 


THE  REPUBLICAN  GOVERNOR  159 

their  aid  and  that  of  the  bolting  Democrats  the 
Republicans  had  a  fair  hope  of  outrunning,  in  the 
Northern  States,  both  the  regular  Democrats  and 
the  old  Whigs.  This  is  the  secret  of  the  near  ap 
proach  to  the  choice  of  a  president  by  the  Repub 
licans  in  1856  ;  for  they  proved  to  have  pluralities 
in  every  Northern  State  except  New  Jersey,  Penn 
sylvania,  Indiana,  and  Illinois. 

How  far  a  man  may,  with  good  taste  and  up 
rightness,  enter  into  a  personal  canvass  for  a  nom 
ination  to  the  presidency  is  a  difficult  question  of 
ethics.  To  Chase  it  seemed  simple  ;  he  believed 
sincerely  that  he  had  the  qualities  of  a  president ; 
he  believed  that  the  principles  for  which  he  stood 
were  those  to  which  the  Republican  party  must 
commit  itself  if  it  was  to  be  honest ;  he  believed 
that  he  had  a  large  popular  support  throughout 
the  country ;  and  he  believed  that  proper  organiza 
tion  and  means  of  making  himself  known  would 
bring  about  his  nomination.  He  had  no  experi 
enced  lieutenants  like  Thurlow  Weed  in  New  York, 
political  moles  to  prepare  the  ground  for  him  un 
seen  ;  Hamlin  and  Ashley  and  Hoadly  were  ener 
getic  young  men,  but  of  little  public  reputation  ; 
and  though  Chase  possessed  and  cultivated  an 
acquaintance  in  New  York  and  New  England,  he 
had  no  workers  in  the  East  who  could  secure  dele 
gates  or  make  combinations  for  him.  The  feeling 
of  leadership,  the  desire  to  be  President,  were  right 
and  natural,  and  it  does  not  appear  that  Chase 
used  any  but  straightforward  means  to  secure  a 


160  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

nomination.  It  was  his  fault  to  overestimate  other 
people's  inclination  toward  him,  and  his  weakness 
not  to  be  on  cordial  terms  of  equal  friendship  with 
any  of  the  other  Republican  leaders. 

During  the  first  half  of  1856  Chase  and  his  few 
friends  were  hard  at  work.  The  preliminary  Pitts- 
burg  convention  of  1856,  the  first  national  Re 
publican  gathering,  gave  an  opportunity  for  com 
paring  the  respective  strength  of  candidates,  and 
one  of  Chase's  friends  who  was  present  was  sure 
that  he  would  have  been  nominated  had  the  con 
vention  undertaken  to  present  a  candidate.  By 
this  time  the  possible  nominees  had  all  come  for 
ward.  Bailey  wrote,  February  21,  that  Seward 
would  not  risk  seeking  a  nomination,  and  that  the 
leading  candidates  were  Preston  King,  Colonel 
Fremont  (brought  forward  by  Frank  J.  Blair), 
and  John  McLean.  Just  at  this  time  Banks  was 
chosen  speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
and  he  also  loomed  up  as  a  candidate.  In  his 
intimate  correspondence  with  Edward  L.  Pierce, 
Chase  revealed  his  own  hopes  and  fears ;  he  in 
veighed  against "  the  feeling,  which  some  men  seem 
to  have  fallen  into,  of  taking  up  an  untried  man 
for  President ;  "  he  complained  that  Hiram  Bar 
ney,  his  lieutenant  in  New  York,  was  "  a  little  dis 
posed  sometimes  to  forbear  working,  in  fear  that 
nothing  can  be  done."  But  Pierce  felt  compelled 
to  write  a  cooling  letter,  in  which  he  predicted  the 
inevitable  nomination  of  Fremont. 

Even  with  a  solid  Ohio  delegation  and  the  pres- 


THE  REPUBLICAN   GOVERNOR  161 

tige  of  his  governorship,  Chase  could  hardly  have 
been  successful  against  the  combination  formed  in 
favor  of  Fremont ;  but  he  was  now  to  learn  the 
strength  of  his  home  opponents  and  enemies.  Of 
the  Ohio  delegation  he  could  count  on  only  thirty- 
five,  while  thirty-four  were  for  either  McLean 
or  Fremont.  "  My  friends  did  not  act,"  said  he, 
"  with  the  skill  and  decision  which  was  required." 
In  addition  to  these  thirty-five  faithful  ones,  about 
sixty  delegates  to  the  Philadelphia  Convention 
from  other  States  were  for  Chase ;  though  it  was 
a  sore  point  with  him  that  he  could  not  secure  the 
New  Hampshire  delegation.  Yet  he  was  still  con 
fident.  "  It  seems  to  me,"  said  he,  "  that  if  the 
most  cherished  wishes  of  the  people  could  prevail, 
I  should  be  nominated."  Nevertheless,  he  gave  to 
Hoadly  a  letter  of  withdrawal,  to  be  used  if  neces 
sary.  Hoadly  saw  nothing  else  to  do,  Chase's 
name  was  withdrawn,  and  Fremont  was  nominated. 
It  was  well  that  Chase  did  not  succeed  in  risking 
his  reputation  in  that  campaign,  for  no  out-and-out 
anti-slavery  man  could  have  polled  a  larger  vote 
than  the  neutral  and  unknown  Fremont,  and  yet 
he  was  defeated  by  James  Buchanan. 

Though  no  man  was  himself  more  incorruptible 
in  office,  Chase  could  not  help  knowing  that  the 
state  Republican  administration,  of  which  he  was 
the  titular  head,  was  very  corrupt,  and  that  the 
state  treasurer,  Gibson,  had  refused  to  show  his 
books  ;  and  Ashley  wrote  :  "  There  has  been  a  very 
large  number  of  these  blood-sucking  Republicans 


162  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

by  name,  who  have  shown  that  they  would  ruin  not 
only  the  party  but  their  nearest  friends."  Yet  it 
seems  to  have  been  an  unexpected  blow  to  Chase 
when  in  June,  1857,  Gibson  brazenly  and  defiantly 
admitted  that  $ 500,000  was  missing  from  the  state 
treasury.  Chase  when  roused  showed  much  reso 
lution,  and  even  invented  a  new  method  of  removal 
from  office ;  for  when  Gibson  refused  to  resign  in 
order  that  a  successor  might  be  appointed,  the  gov 
ernor  brought  him  to  terms  by  threatening  to  make 
a  vacancy  by  instituting  legal  proceedings  against 
him.  Still  it  seemed  hard  for  Chase  to  admit  that 
embezzlement  had  been  going  on  among  his  friends, 
and  he  spoke  of  Gibson  as  "  reckless  "  and  "  infat 
uated,"  rather  than  criminal. 

The  incident  was  very  dangerous  for  a  party 
about  to  enter  on  a  campaign  ;  hence  when  pressure 
was  put  upon  Chase  to  accept  a  renomination  and 
head  the  fight,  he  could  not  resist,  though  he  knew 
that  he  was  taking  in  his  hand  his  chances  for  the 
presidency  in  1860.  The  campaign  was  more  than 
arduous,  it  was  anxious.  Payne  of  Cleveland, 
Chase's  opponent,  tried  hard  to  hold  the  governor 
responsible  for  the  Gibson  fraud,  and  is  reported 
to  have  freely  bought  votes  with  money  assessed  on 
Buchanan's  federal  office-holders.  The  Whigs  and 
Know-Nothings  were  now  completely  broken  up, 
and  the  struggle  lay  between  Republicans  and 
Democrats.  Chase  was  successful  by  a  scanty  plu 
rality  of  1500  in  a  total  vote  of  330,000 ;  but  the 
New  York  "Evening  Post "  said  of  the  result :  "  It 


THE  REPUBLICAN  GOVERNOR  163 

is  the  most  complete  political  victory  that  the  gov 
ernor  has  ever  achieved."  Chase's  reelection  was 
a  triumph  because  it  set  the  seal  of  his  own  State 
on  his  place  as  a  Republican  leader.  During  the 
next  three  years,  in  the  State  and  out  of  it,  he 
occupied  in  the  Republican  party  much  the  same 
position  of  general  political  counselor  that  he  had 
held  in  the  Liberty  party  ten  years  earlier.  Even 
in  state  affairs  he  was  thinking  of  national  issues, 
and  his  second  inaugural  address  was  a  kind  of 
apostrophe  to  liberty.  He  felt  himself  in  a  stronger 
position  with  the  legislature  than  heretofore.  There 
were  no  new  treasury  scandals,  and  the  credit  and 
repute  of  his  State  increased ;  but  a  new  crop  of 
slavery  questions  now  came  up  and  caused  him 
great  trouble. 

On  the  fugitive  slave  question  the  Compromise 
of  1850  had  from  the  first  been  a  failure :  it  could 
not  prevent  a  slave  from  taking  to  his  heels;  it 
simply  stimulated  the  Underground  Railroad  to  do 
more  business  ;  and  it  played  into  the  hands  of 
the  abolitionists  by  furnishing,  in  nearly  all  the 
Northern  States,  object  lessons  as  to  the  necessary 
violence  and  cruelty  of  slavery.  By  taking  the 
execution  of  the  law  entirely  out  of  the  hands  of 
state  officers,  the  Act  of  1850  had  only  suggested  a 
new  batch  of  "  personal  liberty  laws,"  passed  by 
Northern  States  to  compel  the  federal  government 
to  do  all  the  work  of  pursuing  the  fugitives  and 
securing  them  in  its  own  buildings.  The  spectacle 
of  a  master  laying  his  hand  upon  a  shaking  fugi- 


164  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

tive  and  taking  him  before  a  United  States  com 
missioner  was  unpleasant ;  and  it  was  still  more 
hateful  to  the  people  of  the  North  to  see  a  negro 
seized  by  a  professional  slave  -catcher,  whom  he  had 
never  seen  before,  armed  with  a  power  of  attorney 
or  a  bill  of  sale ;  besides,  many  people  liked  the 
excitement  of  leading  the  deputy  marshals  and 
their  assistants  astray,  or  of  defying  federal  au 
thority. 

Another  self-destructive  element  in  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law  was  its  plain  and  necessary  violation  of 
the  ordinary  principles  of  human  justice.  Under 
the  act,  the  question  whether  a  man  was  or  was 
not  the  fugitive  described  in  the  allegation  was 
decided  by  "  summary  proceedings,"  without  a 
jury.  If  a  slave,  he  was  legally  subject  to  the  pro 
cess  and  had  no  right  to  complain ;  but  if  he  was  a 
free  man,  he  was  entitled  to  the  ordinary  protec 
tion  of  life  and  liberty,  which  this  law  denied  him. 
A  jury  trial  was  what  the  anti-slavery  people  con 
tinually  demanded ;  but  everybody  knew  that  in  a 
free  State  it  was  next  to  impossible  to  impanel  a 
jury  in  which  twelve  members  would  unite  in  hold 
ing  any  particular  negro  to  be  a  fugitive  or  any 
rescuer  to  be  a  criminal ;  one  might  as  well  expect 
a  Georgia  jury  to  acquit  a  slave-stealer.  In  some 
States  personal  liberty  bilis  prescribed  a  jury  trial 
in  defiance  of  the  Act  of  1850,  or  even  required 
state  attorneys  to  defend  the  negroes  claimed. 

On  the  other  side,  the  Act  of  1850  had  laid  new 
and  severe  penalties  for  interference  with  capture 


THE  REPUBLICAN  GOVERNOR  165 

by  "  harboring  or  concealing "  the  fugitive,  or  by 
resisting  the  pursuer  ;  in  1852  an  attempt  was  even 
made,  in  the  Castner  Han  way  case  in  Philadelphia, 
to  hold  resistance  to  slave-catchers  to  be  construc 
tive  treason,  so  as  to  fix  upon  the  crime  a  death 
penalty.  State  governments  grew  restive  over  the 
status  of  both  black  and  white  citizens  or  residents 
who  were  thus  swept  within  the  authority  of  the 
federal  courts  on  charges  growing  out  of  the  Fugi 
tive  Slave  Law.  A  favorite  method  of  raising  the 
question  as  to  the  rival  jurisdictions  of  State  and 
nation  was  to  get  a  habeas  corpus  from  a  state 
court,  so  as  to  examine  the  status  of  alleged  fugi 
tives  or  their  rescuers ;  and  in  1858,  in  the  famous 
case  of  Ableman  v.  Booth,  the  Wisconsin  Supreme 
Court  hewed  through  the  difficulty  of  rival  jurisdic 
tion  by  roundly  declaring  the  Act  of  1850  unconsti 
tutional,  and  therefore  no  bar  to  state  proceedings, 
and  no  cause  for  national  interference. 

In  this  exciting  controversy  Chase  was  one  of 
the  great  figures,  though  by  his  moderation  of  con 
duct  he  gave  much  offense  to  the  ultra-abolitionists. 
Late  in  March,  1855,  he  was  called  as  counsel  for 
Kosetta,  a  colored  girl  of  sixteen,  who  had  been 
taken  from  the  control  of  her  master,  while  traveling 
by  rail  through  Ohio,  and  declared  free  by  a  state 
court.  She  was,  however,  seized  by  a  United  States 
deputy  marshal,  and  from  his  custody  rescued  by  a 
writ  of  habeas  corpus,  argued  before  a  state  court 
by  R.  B.  Hayes.  A  second  time  the  marshal  seized 
her.  On  Chase's  advice  a  test  case  was  made,  by 


166  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

asking  for  proceedings  for  contempt  against  the 
marshal ;  he  was,  however,  discharged  by  Justice 
McLean  of  the  United  States  court,  on  the  ground 
that  the  process  authorized  by  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law  was  not  subject  to  interference  by  a  state  court. 
To-day  it  is  clear  that  the  federal  authorities,  in 
their  insistence  on  the  superiority  of  federal  law, 
were  on  the  side  of  orderly  national  life.  The 
Fugitive  Slave  Law  was  simply  one  of  the  instances 
in  which  a  proper  discretion  must  include  the  power 
to  do  injustice. 

About  two  weeks  after  Chase's  inauguration  as 
governor,  a  slave  family  named  Garner  escaped  to 
Cincinnati ;  the  next  day  United  States  Marshal 
Robinson  came  to  capture  them,  but  the  slaves  re 
sisted,  and  in  a  frenzy  of  excitement  Margaret 
Garner  seized  a  butcher's  knife  and  killed  her 
little  daughter.  The  capture  of  the  fugitives  was 
at  once  traversed  by  an  indictment  of  the  Garners 
in  a  state  court  for  murder;  nevertheless  they 
were  given  into  the  custody  of  the  marshal  by 
habeas  corpus  proceedings  before  a  United  States 
court,  and  by  him  taken  before  Commissioner  Pen- 
dery,  who  held  them  to  be  fugitives ;  thereupon 
they  were  forthwith  carried  to  Kentucky  and  deliv 
ered  to  their  master. 

These  legal  proceedings  had  dragged  on  for  four 
weeks.  The  proposed  state  trial  was  of  course 
simply  a  means  of  holding  the  negroes  out  of  the 
master's  hands,  and  was  likely  to  keep  up  the  gen 
eral  excitement  over  slavery ;  for  everybody  knew 


THE   REPUBLICAN  GOVERNOR  167 

that  under  such  circumstances  no  Ohio  jury  would 
convict  a  slave  mother  or  her  accomplices  of  mur 
der.  The  case  put  Governor  Chase  into  a  cruel 
perplexity.  At  the  beginning  he  had  promised  to 
sanction  the  process  of  the  state  courts  "  by  the 
whole  power  at  the  command  of  the  executive ; " 
but  the  final  delivery  of  the  fugitives  had  been 
hasty  and  unexpected,  and  nobody  could  claim  for 
the  negroes  that  they  were  not  legal  slaves.  As  a 
last  resource,  on  March  4  he  sent  a  requisition  to 
the  governor  of  Kentucky  for  the  return  of  the 
"  murderess,"  arguing  with  much  force  that  slaves 
could  not  be  permitted  to  cross  the  river  into  Ohio 
and  there  commit  crimes  with  impunity.  Governor 
Morehead  of  Kentucky  granted  the  request ;  but 
the  master  had  by  this  time  carried  the  slaves  out 
of  his  State,  and  the  confidential  agent  whom  Chase 
sent  to  buy  them  reported  that  Margaret  Garner 
had  been  sent  "  down  the  river."  The  Kentucky 
authorities  had  no  wish  to  examine  into  the  matter 
again,  and  no  further  proceedings  could  be  had. 

In  1864,  when  the  question  was  again  raised  by 
the  furious  attacks  of  Wendell  Phillips,  Chase  wrote 
that  Cincinnati  was  at  that  time  hostile  to  him, 
that  he  was  taken  by  surprise,  and  that  he  was  in 
Columbus  at  the  critical  moment.  The  real  reason 
probably  lies  somewhat  deeper ;  the  governor  of  a 
State  is  bound  to  exercise  more  caution  than  a  pri 
vate  man.  Chase  had  formerly  been  attorney  for 
fugitives  ;  he  was  now  governor  of  the  whole  State, 
and  hence  attorney  for  all  its  people.  In  a  similar 


168  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

case,  that  of  the  fugitive  Anderson,  in  1857,  the 
part  which  Governor  Chase  took  in  the  controversy 
was  thus  described  by  himself  some  years  later :  — 

"  Judge  Leavitt,  at  Cincinnati,  then  issued  a 
writ  of  habeas  corpus  directed  to  the  sheriff,  re 
quiring  him  to  produce  his  prisoners.  The  writ 
was  obeyed,  and  application  was  made  to  me  to 
have  the  State  represented  upon  the  hearing.  I  at 
once  directed  the  attorney-general  to  appear,  who 
did  so,  and  argued  the  questions  arising  in  the  case 
with  great  ability.  Mr.  Pugh  and  Mr.  Yallandig- 
ham  appeared  on  the  side  of  the  slave-catchers. 
The  result  was  what  was  indeed  foreseen  —  an 
order  by  Judge  Leavitt  discharging  the  prisoners. 

"The  leading  administration  paper  denounced 
my  action  as  a  declaration  of  war  on  the  part  of 
Chase  and  his  abolition  crew  against  the  United 
States.  I  was  indifferent  to  it." 

The  matter  had  grown  so  serious  that  in  July  the 
governor  went  to  Washington  to  settle  the  con 
troversy.  Cass,  Secretary  of  State,  had  retained  a 
feeling  of  admiration  for  Chase  from  their  sena 
torial  days,  and  he  now  brought  about  a  meeting 
with  President  Buchanan,  in  which  it  was  agreed 
that  the  suits  should  be  dropped  on  both  sides.  A 
few  months  later,  however,  Chase,  in  the  canvass 
for  his  reelection,  took  a  more  belligerent  tone. 
"  We  have  a  right,"  said  he,  "  to  have  our  state 
laws  obeyed.  We  don't  mean  to  resist  federal 
authority.  Just  or  unjust  laws  properly  adminis 
tered  will  be  respected.  If  dissatisfied  we  will  go 


THE   REPUBLICAN  GOVERNOR  169 

to  the  ballot-box  and  redress  our  wrongs.  But  we 
have  rights  which  the  federal  government  must 
not  invade,  rights  superior  to  its  power,  on  which 
our  sovereignty  depends  ;  and  we  do  mean  to  assert 
these  rights  against  all  tyrannical  assumption  of 
authority.  I  know  not  what  will  be  done  in  Cham 
paign  County.  The  courts  will  determine  that. 
But  I  do  know  that  if  the  marshals  who  violate  our 
laws  are  indicted  and  the  writs  for  their  arrest  are 
placed  in  the  hands  of  our  state  officers  they  shall 
be  executed.  And  we  expect  the  federal  govern 
ment  to  submit." 

The  next  year  the  validity  of  state  process  when 
opposed  to  national  was  put  to  another  test.  In 
September,  1858,  a  fugitive  slave,  John  Price,  was 
rescued  out  of  the  hands  of  his  claimants  by  an 
armed  mob  of  Oberlin  people.  The  proceedings 
dragged  on  till  the  summer  of  1859,  when  two  of 
the  rescuers  were  convicted.  Meantime  applica 
tion  had  been  brought  before  the  Ohio  Supreme 
Court  to  grant  a  habeas  corpus  to  inquire  into  the 
status  of  the  two  convicted  men,  a  step  which 
would  practically  mean  raising  the  question  of  the 
constitutionality  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  May 
24,  1859,  a  mass  meeting  was  held  at  Cleveland  to 
protest  against  the  convictions.  Governor  Chase 
came,  and  threw  the  weight  of  his  official  influence 
against  violence,  and  also  against  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law.  His  first  words,  "  Citizens  of  Cleve 
land  !  law-abiding  citizens  of  Cleveland !  "  struck 
a  responsive  chord  in  the  meeting,  and  made  it 


170  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

easy  for  him  to  add :  "  I  will  only  say  what  I  have 
frequently  said  before,  that  as  long  as  the  State  of 
Ohio  remains  a  sovereignty,  and  as  long  as  I  am 
her  chief  executive,  the  process  of  her  courts  shall 
be  executed.  The  process  of  the  United  States 
courts  must  not  be  slighted  or  resisted;  but  as 
long  as  I  represent  the  sovereignty  of  our  State,  I 
will  see  that  the  process  of  our  state  courts  shall 
not  be  interfered  with  or  resisted,  but  shall  be  fully 
enforced." 

The  state  Supreme  Court  stood  three  to  two 
against  interfering ;  whereupon  the  next  Republi 
can  convention  punished  one  of  the  three,  Judge 
Swan,  by  refusing  him  a  renomination.  Mean 
while  one  of  the  counsel  for  the  prisoners,  A.  G. 
Riddle,  had  made  an  effective  use  of  state  process  : 
the  capturers  of  John  Price  had  been  indicted  for 
kidnapping,  and  as  their  man  was  gone  they  could 
not  prove  that  he  was  the  person  described  in  their 
papers.  They  would  be  tried  in  the  same  county 
in  which  Oberlin  lay,  and  they  might  count  on  a 
unanimous  and  hostile  jury.  The  administration 
now  showed  its  interest  in  the  whole  controversy 
by  sending  Attorney-General  Black  to  look  into  the 
cases ;  and  when  Riddle  proposed  to  him  to  aban 
don  the  kidnapping  suits,  if  all  the  suits  against 
the  rescuers  were  discontinued,  the  astute  Phila 
delphia  lawyer  saw  nothing  else  for  it.  This  result 
was  summed  up  by  an  administration  organ  in 
the  caustic  words :  "  So  the  government  has  been 
beaten  at  last,  with  law,  justice,  and  facts  all  on 


THE  REPUBLICAN  GOVERNOR  171 

its  side,  and  Oberlin,  with  its  relentless,  higher- 
law  creed,  is  triumphant." 

The  period  of  Chase's  governorship  was  also  a 
period  of  great  influence  and  usefulness  in  national 
questions  of  slavery,  especially  on  "  Bleeding  Kan 
sas."  Douglas's  moral  obtuseness  had  played  him 
a  trick  when  he  brought  forward  the  repeal  of 
the  Missouri  Compromise.  He  not  only  failed  to 
foresee  the  indignation  of  the  North,  but  he  also 
left  out  of  his  calculations  the  probability  that 
Kansas,  the  southern  of  the  two  new  Territories, 
might  be  controlled  by  free-state  men.  When  the 
Southerners  saw  the  danger  of  its  slipping  out  of 
their  grasp,  they  naturally  held  Douglas  responsi 
ble  ;  and  he,  in  his  wrath  at  the  practical  workings 
of  popular  sovereignty,  could  only  reply  that  "  the 
whole  trouble  in  Kansas  was  due  to  the  Emigrant 
Aid  Societies."  In  November,  1854,  the  first  ter 
ritorial  election  showed  2000  votes  from  a  commu 
nity  with  only  1200  voters,  and  in  March,  1855, 
a  territorial  legislature  was  chosen  by  the  most 
shameless  intimidation  and  fraud.  Throughout 
1855  and  1856  Chase  was  in  communication  with 
the  men  in* Kansas  who  were  trying  to  undo  this 
wrong,  —  writing  letters  of  counsel  and  comfort, 
rousing  energy,  promising  "good  rifles,"  and  in 
public  speeches  denouncing  the  policy  of  the  suc 
cessive  presidents,  Pierce  and  Buchanan. 

Fortunately  for  Kansas  and  for  the  country,  the 
national  House  of  Representatives  from  1855  to 
1857  had  a  majority  of  anti-Nebraska  men,  who 


172  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

could  and  did  restrain  any  action  by  Congress  in 
favor  of  the  pro-slavery  domination  of  Kansas. 
When,  in  July,  1856,  a  local  civil  war  broke  out  in 
Kansas,  Governor  Chase  wrote,  in  the  fiercest  indig 
nation,  to  Governor  Grimes  of  Iowa  :  "  We  must 
not  sit  still  while  our  brethren  in  Kansas  are  in 
such  imminent  peril.  You  are  nearest  of  all  the 
free-state  governors  to  the  theatre  of  action.  .  .  . 
It  seems  to  me  that  no  time  should  be  lost  and  no 
efforts  spared  in  sending  out  men  fully  provided, 
who  will  remain  in  the  Territory  as  actual  settlers 
.  .  .  should  the  pro-slavery  men  of  western  Mis 
souri  and  other  States  again  invade  Kansas  .  .  . 
every  sentiment  of  honor  and  every  obligation  of 
duty  requires  us  to  give  our  outraged  brethren 
.  .  .  prompt  and  efficient  succor,  without  reference 
to  settlement." 

This  was  not  the  only  suggestion  of  civil  war 
made  by  Chase.  When  Charles  Robinson,  titular 
free-state  governor  of  Kansas,  called  on  some  of 
the  Eastern  governors  for  support,  Chase  took  the 
responsibility  of  sending  to  the  Ohio  legislature  a 
stirring  message,  in  which  he  recounted  the  wrongs 
of  the  Ohio  men  in  Kansas,  and  rose  to  the  em 
phatic  declaration  :  "  These  representations  cannot 
be  properly  disregarded.  As  an  equal  member  of 
the  confederacy,  Ohio  is  entitled  to  demand  for  her 
citizens,  emigrating  to  the  Territories,  free  ingress 
and  egress  by  the  ordinary  routes  and  complete 
protection  from  invasion,  from  usurpation,  and 
from  lawless  violence.  If  the  general  government 


THE   REPUBLICAN  GOVERNOR  173 

refuse  this  protection,  I  cannot  doubt  the  right  or 
the  duty  of  the  State  to  intervene." 

One  of  the  purposes  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision 
of  March,  1857,  was  to  tie  the  hands  of  the  free- 
state  men  in  Kansas,  and  of  their  adherents  every 
where.  But  Chase,  the  future  chief  justice,  had 
long  entertained  and  several  times  expounded  his 
want  of  confidence  in  the  Supreme  Court.  In  May, 
1847,  he  wrote  to  Hale  in  protest  at  the  pro-slavery 
construction  of  the  Constitution  :  "  The  people  will 
overthrow  it  if  they  have  to  overthrow  the  courts 
too."  In  his  Syracuse  speech  of  August,  1853,  he 
pointed  out  how  there  came  to  be  a  permanent  ma 
jority  of  pro-slavery  justices,  adding,  "  I  take  it 
upon  myself  to  question,  and  with  some  degree  of 
boldness,  the  decision  of  the  court  upon  the  subject 
of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act ; "  and  in  many  public 
utterances  of  1858  and  1859  he  repeated  his  dis 
sent  from  the  doctrine  that  slavery  must  go  into 
the  Territories,  and  his  intention  to  disregard  the 
decrees  of  the  Supreme  Court. 

On  the  question  of  the  Lecompton  constitution, 
in  1858  Chase,  like  most  of  his  friends,  was  be 
fogged  ;  and  he  wrote  a  letter  advising  the  Kansas 
men  to  accept  it,  and  then  take  possession  of  the 
new  state  government  and  amend  their  constitution 
at  their  leisure.  For  this  counsel  Chase  was  less 
blamable,  because  the  Republicans  in  Congress 
failed  to  comprehend  that  the  issue  was  one  of  prin 
ciple,  and  that  the  Eepublicans  could  not  vote  to 
admit  a  slave  State  at  any  time,  whatever  the  pro- 


174  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

spect  of  its  changing  its  status  later,  without  under 
mining  the  foundation  of  their  party.  Douglas's 
opposition  to  the  Lecompton  outrage  even  deceived 
many  good  Republicans  into  supposing  that  he  was 
about  to  take  their  ground,  and  Horace  Greeley 
urged  the  Illinois  Republicans  to  drop  Lincoln  and 
let  Douglas  go  back  to  the  Senate.  But  in  Decem 
ber,  1857,  Chase  wrote :  ki  I  expect  little  from  the 
Douglas  demonstration.  He  has  no  solid  base  in 
him.  He  may  bluster,  but  he  will  not  grapple 
with  the  slave  power ; "  and  again  in  November, 
1859,  "  The  great  error  in  respect  to  Douglas  was 
that  of  ...  giving  him  the  lead  in  the  anti-Le- 
compton  fight,  leaving  the  Republican  senators  and 
representatives  only  a  secondary  place,  and  giving 
to  the  country  the  impression  that  they  were  about 
ready  to  adopt  his  doctrine  that  slavery  is  as  good 
as  freedom,  if  a  majority  of  qualified  voters  say  so." 

One  of  the  greatest  characters  in  the  anti-slavery 
struggle  now  appears  in  direct  relations  with  Chase. 
In  December,  1856,  Chase  indorsed  a  recommen 
dation  of  Charles  Robinson,  commending  Captain 
John  Brown  to  the  confidence  of  the  friends  of  Kan 
sas.  In  1857  he  subscribed  twenty-five  dollars  for 
Brown's  use,  and  later  he  received  the  following 
very  characteristic  letter,  sent  from  Tabor,  Iowa, 
under  date  of  September  10,  1857. 

"  Enclosed  please  find  First  number  of  a  series 
of  Tracts  which  have  lately  been  gotten  up  here. 
Your  frank  opinion  of  it  is  respectfully  asked  (not 
for  any  kind  of  publication).  My  principle  object 


THE   REPUBLICAN  GOVERNOR  175 

in  again  troubling  you,  is  to  say  that  /  am  in  im 
mediate  want  of  from  Five  Hundred  to  One  Thou 
sand  Dollars  for  Secret  service  and  no  questions 
asked.  I  want  the  friends  of  Freedom  to  'prove 
me  now  herewith.'  WILL  YOU  exert  your  influence 
to  have  it  made  up :  in  your  own  hands,  subject 
to  my  order:  or  placed  in  the  hands  of  any  suit 
able,  and  responsible  man  you  may  name  ? 

"  Please  write  me  or  have  some  person  write  me, 
directing  Envelope  to  Jonas  Jones  Esqr  of  this 
place. 

"  Very  Respectfully  Your  Friend, 

"  JOHN  BROWN. 

"  Friend  J.  Jr.  will  inclose  this  anew  to  destina 
tion  at  once." 

Like  others  of  John  Brown's  correspondents, 
East  and  West,  Chase  had  shut  his  eyes  to  the 
use  that  might  be  made  of  his  subscription,  and 
he  was  startled  by  the  news  of  the  Harper's  Ferry 
raid  in  October,  1859.  The  New  York  "  Herald  " 
accused  him  of  being  a  party  to  the  conspiracy, 
a  charge  which  Chase  always  denied ;  but  he  was 
drawn  into  the  controversy  by  a  letter  of  Governor 
Wise  of  Virginia,  complaining  that  armed  expedi 
tions  were  forming  in  Ohio  (presumably  for  the 
rescue  of  Brown),  and  warning  him,  "  If  another 
invasion  should  assail  the  State  of  Virginia,  I 
shall  pursue  the  invaders  into  any  territory,  and 
punish  them  wherever  they  can  be  reached  by 
arms."  Chase  quietly  replied  that  Ohio  could  not 
"  consent  to  the  invasion  of  her  territory  by  armed 


176  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

bodies  from  other  States ;  "  and  with  this  exchange 
of  defiances  the  matter  was  dropped. 

From  the  above  account  of  Chase's  four  years 
as  governor,  it  appears  that  his  chief  activity  and 
his  interests  were,  as  they  had  been  for  the  twenty 
years  previous,  in  the  anti-slavery  cause.  His  most 
important  addresses  and  messages  to  the  Ohio  legis 
lature  turned  on  slavery  and  on  national  questions 
arising  out  of  slavery ;  the  most  stirring  events 
within  his  State  were  phases  of  slavery ;  his  place 
as  a  national  leader  was  due  to  his  eminence  as  an 
anti-slavery  man  ;  his  warmest  personal  friends  and 
correspondents  were  anti-slavery  men,  and  many 
of  them  abolitionists.  While  Seward  said  strong 
things  and  then  tempered  them,  while  men  like 
Henry  Wilson  sought  to  find  other  issues  for  the 
Kepublican  party,  while  Douglas  was  reflected  sen 
ator  from  Illinois  on  the  programme  of  not  caring 
whether  slavery  was  voted  down  or  voted  up,  Chase 
stood  out  unswervingly  as  a  political  abolitionist. 

It  is  true  that  while  governor  he  smoothed  down 
his  utterances,  and  avoided  making  the  issue  with 
the  general  government  which  his  radical  friends 
desired  ;  but  to  his  mind  the  great  question  before 
the  people  of  the  United  States  was  the  extension 
of  slavery  beyond  the  limits  of  the  existing  slave 
States,  and  his  influence,  voice,  and  purse  were 
unwaveringly  against  the  taking  of  fugitives,  or  the 
introduction  of  slavery  into  the  Territories.  Sum- 
ner  and  Giddings  may  have  had  more  violent  con 
victions,  but  neither  of  them  held  so  prominent  a 


THE  REPUBLICAN  GOVERNOR  177 

station  as  Chase.  Seward,  Cameron,  and  Thurlow 
Weed  had  more  influence  in  determining  the  policy 
of  the  Republican  party,  but  there  was  not  in  the 
whole  country  in  1860  any  man  who  had  so  high  a 
reputation  as  Chase  for  long,  unceasing  opposition 
to  the  powers  of  slavery,  through  political  means. 
If  the  Republican  party  intended  in  the  campaign 
of  1860  to  nominate  a  man  whose  name  was  a  plat 
form,  he  was  the  man. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  ELECTION  OF  1860 

CHASE'S  reelection  in  1857  showed  greater  Re 
publican  vitality  in  Ohio  than  in  some  other 
States,  for  the  party  in  general  lost  ground  that 
year.  In  the  congressional  elections  of  1858,  how 
ever,  the  Republicans  for  the  first  time  secured  a 
working  majority  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
the  House  which  was  to  sit  from  1859  to  1861 ; 
and  Buchanan  took  so  crushing  a  rebuke  in  his  own 
State  of  Pennsylvania  that  he  himself  dolefully 
said  of  it :  "  Our  defeat  is  so  complete  as  to  be 
absurd."  As  1860  came  in,  therefore,  the  Republi 
cans  were  alert  and  confident :  with  an  available 
candidate,  a  safe  platform,  and  prudent  manage 
ment  of  the  campaign,  they  ought  to  hold  and  even 
increase  their  vote,  especially  since  their  opponents 
were  so  disunited  that  Jefferson  Davis,  as  repre 
sentative  of  the  Southern  wing,  had  refused  fellow 
ship  to  Douglas. 

Manoeuvres  for  the  Republican  nominations 
began  very  early,  and  Chase  conducted  in  his  own 
behalf  a  long  and  anxious  preliminary  canvass, 
which  throws  much  interesting  light  on  the  me 
thods  of  bringing  a  presidential  candidate  before 


THE   ELECTION   OF   1860  179 

the  public.  For  example,  in  April,  1857,  he  chides 
a  correspondent  for  speaking  too  well  of  Fremont, 
and  bids  him  remember  that  "  there  is  no  hope  for 
our  cause  in  the  future  unless  there  is  a  clear  mani 
festation  of  confidence  in  our  principles  and  in  the 
men  whom  the  common  voice  declares  to  be  the 
true  representatives  of  them."  By  September, 
1857,  scattered  correspondents  begin  to  announce 
that  they  will  support  him  for  the  presidency ;  and 
in  November,  just  after  his  reelection  as  governor, 
Chase  himself  says  :  "  At  present  it  looks  to  me  as 
if  I  might  secure  it." 

From  this  time  on,  though  busy  as  governor,  fre 
quent  in  counsels  on  national  affairs,  and  stunned 
like  all  his  countrymen  by  the  din  of  the  Lecomp- 
ton  controversy,  Chase  sets  himself  steadily  to  in 
spirit  his  friends  and  to  impress  the  public.  He 
revives  a  plan  for  a  campaign  life  of  himself,  which 
had  been  projected  in  1856  ;  he  asks  his  followers 
to  say  "  good  words  in  correspondence,  by  the  pen, 
and  in  conversation  till  the  time  shall  call  for  a 
public  movement ; "  he  stirs  up  his  old  friends  the 
newspaper  men ;  he  goes  to  Commencement  at 
Dartmouth  College  for  the  first  time  in  thirty- 
two  years,  and  is  gratified  by  the  cordial  feeling  in 
his  favor  which  he  thinks  he  finds  in  New  Hamp 
shire  ;  he  eats  a  "  complimentary  dinner  to  Gov 
ernor  Chase  "  at  the  Parker  House  in  Boston,  and 
keeps  the  bill  of  fare.  In  Ohio  everything  seems  to 
his  satisfaction  ;  old  rivals  take  the  field  for  him 
with  enthusiasm  ;  and  he  learns  that  the  Republi- 


180  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

can  congressmen  from  Ohio  are  for  him.  In  other 
parts  of  the  country,  West  and  East,  he  renews 
correspondence  and  finds  friends.  "  Governor  " 
Charles  Eobinson  writes  favorably  from  Kansas ; 
in  Pennsylvania,  Joshua  Hanna,  a  Pittsburg 
banker,  and  a  warm  personal  friend,  works  stead 
ily  ;  since  Sumner  has  been  disabled  by  Brooks, 
no  man  in  New  England  has  much  interest  in  him 
except  Pierce,  who  does  intelligent  work,  and 
writes  candid  and  discouraging  letters  about  the 
prospect ;  New  York  is  Seward's  stronghold,  but 
Chase  has  there  a  devoted  lieutenant  in  James  H. 
Briggs,  whom  he  has  appointed  to  the  valuable 
office  of  financial  agent  of  Ohio.  Nevertheless, 
Chase  appears  to  be  the  only  really  energetic  sup 
porter  of  Chase;  at  the  end  of  the  year  he  can 
count  up  more  intrigues  of  rivals  than  new  sup 
porters. 

During  1858  Chase  became  interested  in  the  con 
test  in  Illinois,  and  stumped  the  State  for  the  Re 
publican  state  ticket,  but  neither  he  nor  his  corre 
spondents  mention  the  local  politician  who  was 
contesting  the  Illinois  senatorship  against  Douglas, 
or  appear  to  have  recognized  any  rivalry  from  that 
quarter.  Like  many  other  Republicans,  however, 
Chase  did  discover  that  there  was  an  intrigue,  in 
which  Schuyler  Colfax  had  a  leading  part,  to  make 
Douglas  the  Republican  candidate  in  1860.  As  to 
Seward,  Chase's  friends  thought,  as  was  the  case, 
that  he  had  injured  himself  by  his  "  irrepressible 
conflict "  speech  at  Rochester ;  and  the  "  New  York 


THE  ELECTION  OF  1860  181 

Tribune"  and  the  " Independent "  were  supposed 
to  be  against  him.  Thus  far  the  Ohio  man  was  at 
least  holding  his  own  as  a  candidate. 

During  1859  it  became  important  to  Chase  to 
keep  his  standing  as  a  man  in  public  life  by  show 
ing  his  strength  in  Ohio  after  the  expiration  of  his 
governorship.  He  was  therefore  much  gratified 
when,  on  February  3,  1860,  he  was  elected  senator 
of  the  United  States  for  the  term  beginning  March 
4,  1861.  By  this  time  the  elements  of  the  presi 
dential  contest  were  more  clearly  revealed,  and  a 
new  and  very  troublesome  question  arose,  —  that 
of  Chase's  opinions  on  the  tariff.  From  Rhode 
Island,  from  New  York,  and  from  Pennsylvania 
came  reports  that  he  was  considered  unsound  on 
protection.  This  objection  was  one  of  the  unavoid 
able  results  of  his  candid  belief  in  the  Democratic 
doctrine  of  "  as  little  government  as  possible."  He 
had  approved  the  tariff  policy  of  1846 ;  in  many 
public  utterances  he  had  expressed  his  adherence  to 
the  Democratic  doctrines  as  to  trade ;  and  probably 
he  still  believed  them  to  be  the  best ;  so  that  he 
was  hard  put  to  it  to  know  what  to  say  or  do.  Iiv 
the  Northwest,  which  was  recognized  as  a  weak 
spot  for  Chase,  a  few  of  his  friends  were  trying  to 
work  up  a  sentiment  for  him,  and  reported  hope 
fully. 

The  rival  candidates  now  began  to  come  out 
more  distinctly :  Banks,  in  Massachusetts,  already 
almost  overborne  by  his  adhesion  to  remnants  of 
Know-Nothingism  ;  Cameron,  in  Pennsylvania ;  F. 


182  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

P.  Blair,  patron  of  Fremont  in  1856,  had  de 
serted  his  candidate,  and  was  now  pushing  hard 
for  Bates  of  Missouri,  who  was  advertised  as  able 
to  carry  the  border  States  along  with  the  North. 
Chase's  lively  counselor,  James  M.  Ashley,  pro 
posed  to  head  off  this  wicked  plot  against  a  West 
ern  candidate's  chances  by  "  letting  our  friends  in 
Illinois  put  Lincoln  on  the  track ; "  but  an  Illinois 
editor  wrote  that  his  own  ticket  was  "  Chase  and 
Lincoln,"  for  there  seemed  to  be  an  impression 
that,  whoever  headed  the  ticket,  Lincoln  was  likely 
to  be  vice-president. 

In  his  own  State  Chase  had  not  the  warm  sup 
port  of  any  of  the  recognized  party  leaders  or  great 
newspapers  ;  but  he  counted  on  the  good  will  of  the 
Germans,  and  felt  sure  of  a  unanimous  delegation 
to  the  national  convention.  One  of  his  correspond 
ents  felt  so  much  confidence  in  the  future  that  he 
asked  to  be  made  minister  to  Persia ;  and  another 
so  far  overestimated  Chase's  influence  on  the  in 
coming  national  House  of  Representatives,  in  which 
there  was  a  Republican  majority,  as  to  cry :  "  I 
just  ache  to  have  the  position  of  clerk,  with  20  or 
30  subs  of  my  own  appointment."  All  that  can  be 
said  of  Chase's  chances  at  the  end  of  1859  is  that 
he  was  a  man  of  presidential  timber  and  a  founder 
of  the  Republican  party,  who  nevertheless  was 
looked  upon  as  a  stranger  by  the  leaders  of  his  own 
party,  and  seemed  to  have  a  poorer  chance  than 
any  one  of  half  a  dozen  lesser  men. 

In  the  spring  of  1860  came  the  real  struggle. 


THE  ELECTION  OF   1860  183 

Looking  back  forty  years,  we  speak  of  "  the  Re 
publican  party  of  1860,"  as  we  might  speak  of  the 
"  Federal  party  of  1800,"  or  the  "  Whig  party  of 
1840."     In  reality  there  was  as  yet  hardly  more 
than  a  coalition ;  in  1854-55  a  common  term  had 
been  "  Fusion  party ; "  in  1856  the  Native  Ameri 
cans  were  almost  as  important  as  the  Republicans ; 
in  1860  the  former  Whigs,  former  Democrats,  and 
former  Know-Nothings,  now  united  as  Republicans, 
had  no  tradition  of  common  principles  or  common 
leaders,  and  were  still  jealous  of  each  other  and 
often  hostile.     They  came  together  like  Highland 
clans  for  a  common  fight,  marching  side  by  side 
with  men  who  a  short  time  before  had  dented  their 
shields  and  hewn  at  their  heads.     Every  man  sug 
gested  for  the  nomination  was  therefore  tested  by 
his    power   to  attract,  or  his   likelihood  to  repel, 
Conscience  Whigs  and  Cotton  Whigs  and  Hunker 
Democrats  and   old   Free-Soilers    and  ultra-aboli 
tionists,  Irish  and  Germans  and  Nativists.     Hence 
the  strength  of  a  movement  for  a  man  like  Bates, 
who  hoped  to  draw  the  border-state  vote  because  he 
was  an  old  slaveholder,  and  to  satisfy  the  aboli 
tionists  because  he  had  emancipated  his  slaves,  to 
carry  Pennsylvania  because  he  was  a  tariff  man, 
and   to   sweep  Vermont  because   he  was  an   old 
Whig.     Hence  the  weakness  of  a  man  like  Sew- 
ard,  who  had  assaulted  the  Democrats  in  Congress 
and  on  the  stump ;  and  of  a  man  like  Chase,  who 
had  deprived  the  Whigs  of  the  Ohio  senatorship 
in  1849.     As  the  months  drew  on,  however,  the 


184  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

Chase  men  believed  that  the  contest  was  really 
narrowing  to  two  candidates,  the  New  York  and 
Ohio  champions. 

Seward  was  Chase's  most  dangerous  rival, 
through  both  his  good  and  his  bad  qualities.  He 
was  good-natured,  companionable,  and  attractive ; 
he  had  had  long  experience  in  public  life,  and 
was  known  from  end  to  end  of  the  country  ;  he  was 
naturally  a  warm  advocate  of  freedom,  and  he 
had  gone  further  than  Chase  or  any  other  leading 
Republican  in  the  phrasing  of  extreme  anti-slavery 
views,  especially  in  his  "higher  law"  speech  of 
1850  and  in  his  "irrepressible  conflict"  speech 
of  1858.  On  the  other  hand,  he  Was  not  a  leader  in 
legislation  or  in  organizing  resistance  to  slavery 
in  Congress ;  he  had  a  habit  of  withdrawing  or 
altering  his  most  radical  utterances,  and  he  was  a 
very  late  comer  into  the  Republican  party,  and 
might  still  pass  as  a  radical  but  reclaimable  Whig. 

The  chief  objection  to  Seward  was  the  atmo 
sphere  of  political  corruption  which  surrounded 
him.  The  outcome  of  the  Chicago  Convention  of 
1860  cannot  be  understood  without  knowing  some 
thing  of  the  frame  of  mind  in  which  honorable 
men  outside  New  York,  and  a  small  but  very  de 
termined  band  of  Republicans  within  the  State, 
looked  upon  the  regime  of  Thurlow  Weed  and  his 
management  of  Seward.  Throughout  the  canvass 
suggestions  were  thrown  out  that  Seward  was 
unavailable  because  of  his  friends.  Thus,  Charles 
Robinson  of  Kansas  wrote  February  3, 1860  :  "  He 


THE  ELECTION  OF   1860  185 

is  the  spendthrift  of  the  party,  politically,  I  mean, 
and  would  take  from  us  all  arguments  against 
the  former  corrupt  and  extravagant  administration, 
and  is  supported  so  far  as  I  can  learn  chiefly  by 
the  spoilsmen,  who  would  destroy  the  party  in  four 
years  should  they  get  the  government  with  their 
candidate  at  the  head."  H.  B.  Stanton,  a  New 
York  delegate  who  voted  for  Seward  in  the  Chicago 
Convention,  wrote  in  July,  1860 :  "  New  York 
Republicanism  has  been  made  a  reproach,  a  by 
word,  by  the  rascally  conduct  of  our  state  legisla 
ture,  under  the  lead  of  Weed."  Even  cautious 
Chase,  in  a  letter  of  May  10,  1860,  said:  "If 
Albany  is  to  be  transferred  to  Washington,  the 
party  cannot  succeed."  In  a  long  and  careful  let 
ter  of  March  27,  1861,  R.  Campbell,  then  a  New 
York  state  senator,  thus  described  Seward's  polit 
ical  manager,  the  New  York  boss  of  that  time :  — 

"  You  can  only  faintly  imagine  the  extent  and 
ramification  of  the  machinery  of  that  section  of  our 
party  which  acknowledges  Mr.  Weed  as  its  leader. 

"  Pardon  me  for  this  personal  allusion ;  I  would 
ignore  it  if  I  could,  and  never  mention  it,  were  it 
not  that  in  so  doing  I  should  stultify  my  convic 
tions  and  become  a  party  to  the  speedy  downfall  of 
Republicanism  in  this  State.  Believe  me  when  I 
assure  you  that  I  have  not  the  least  feeling  person 
ally  against  Mr.  Weed.  He  has  his  good  qualities, 
which  I  believe  I  know  how  to  appreciate,  and  yet 
is  the  worst  man  in  our  party  in  this  State  in  the 
light  of  influence. 


186  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

"  To  explain  to  you  the  means  which  he  resorts 
to,  to  control  the  primary  meetings  throughout  the 
entire  State,  his  system  of  levying  assessments  and 
holding  office  —  to  refer  to  the  horde  of  political 
pensioners,  dependents,  and  expectants  which  he 
has  quartered  upon  our  party,  and  to  explain  how 
by  these  and  kindred  resorts  he  has  all  along  con 
trolled  state  and  local  conventions,  and,  in  short, 
defeated  every  wish  of  the  better  portion  of  our 
party,  would  only  be  elaborating  upon  what  you 
can  anticipate.  .  .  . 

"Now,  dear  Governor,  I  have  no  other  desire 
than  to  retire  to  private  life  at  the  earliest  possible 
period.  I  never  asked  or  desired  office,  nor  have  I 
anything  now  to  ask  of  Mr.  Barney  for  myself  or 
a'  single  relative  on  earth. 

"  I  nevertheless  desire  to  see  Mr.  Weed's  power 
entirely  broken  in  this  State.  I  desire  this,  first, 
because  the  great  majority  of  the  men  under  his 
control  are  mere  vassals,  and  large  numbers  of 
them  are  a  disgrace  to  our  party.  I  desire  this 
because  he  makes  use  of  favoritism  to  destroy  the 
political  integrity  of  our  entire  party.  I  desire  it 
because  I  believe  in  wholesome  legislation,  in  a 
just,  honest,  and  virtuous  administration  of  public 
affairs,  and  because  I  hate  thieving,  and  utterly 
abhor  an  organized  system  of  profligacy  and  cor 
ruption. 

"  And  now  let  me  assure  you  that  I  do  not 
believe  our  ills  can  be  abated  by  any  other  means 
than  by  keeping  these  dependents  of  Mr.  Weed 


THE   ELECTION   OF   1860  187 

just  where  they  would  keep  all  of  our  friends 
had  they  the  power,  —  out  of  office.  I  do  not  be 
lieve  in  proscription,  nor  would  I  advise  it  in  any 
ordinary  case.  Depend  upon  it,  however,  this  is 
no  ordinary  case.  Every  one  of  these  dependents 
and  vassals  of  Weed  are  so  abject  in  service  that 
they  do  nothing  else  than  foster  faction  continu 
ally.  Whenever  appointed  to  office  through  his 
influence,  they  seem  to  become  his  property. 

"  A  great  popular  movement  is  on  foot  to  break 
forever  the  power  of  this  unscrupulous  political 
tyrant.  That  movement  is  sure  to  prove  success 
ful.  The  breaking  of  that  power  would  disenthrall 
our  party,  and  restore  to  the  people  their  represen 
tative  rights." 

Of  the  other  candidates,  the  one  whom  Chase 
and  his  friends  most  feared  was  Bates,  as  the  only 
Westerner  who  was  likely  to  compete  with  Chase 
for  votes  wrested  from  Seward.  Cameron's  candi 
dacy  none  of  the  Chase  men  took  seriously  ;  they 
reasoned  that  if  there  were  any  Eastern  nominee 
it  would  be  Seward.  Banks  they  placated,  in  the 
hope  that  when  he  realized  that  he  was  out  of  the 
race  he  would  turn  his  friends  to  them  instead  of 
to  Seward.  Lincoln  Chase  never  looked  upon  as 
a  rival  until  the  day  of  the  convention  ;  on  the  con 
trary,  in  March,  1860,  his  lieutenant,  Briggs,  re 
ported  among  other  small  matters  :  "  Mr.  Lincoln 
of  Illinois  told  me  that  [he]  had  a  very  warm  side 
towards  you,  for  of  all  the  prominent  Republicans 
you  were  the  only  one  who  gave  him  aid  and  com- 


•UNIVERSITY 


188  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

fort.  I  urged  him  by  all  means  to  attend  the 
convention.  I  was  pleased  with  him,  I  paid  him 
all  the  attention  I  could,  went  with  him  to  hear 
Mr.  Beecher  and  Dr.  Chapin.  Mr.  Barney  went 
with  him  to  the  4  House  of  Industry '  at  the  Five 
Points,  and  then  took  him  home  to  tea.  He  was 
very  much  pleased  with  Mr.  Barney."  Neither 
Chase  nor  Barney  suspected  that  within  a  year  the 
big,  modest,  friendless  visitor,  to  whom  they  had 
exhibited  the  splendors  of  the  metropolis,  would  be 
in  a  position  to  requite  this  kindness  by  giving 
Barney  the  great  prize  of  the  collectorship  of  New 
York. 

In  the  early  months  of  1860  came  the  choice  of 
delegates,  and  Chase  kept  careful  watch  of  the 
state  conventions,  preserving  a  list  of  delegates 
elect,  on  which  appear  such  memoranda  as  the  fol 
lowing:  "California  —  Leland  Stanford  of  Sacra 
mento  and  Charles  Watrous  of  San  Francisco,  will 
have  great  influence.  The  first  choice  of  delegates, 
Seward  ;  second,  Chase  —  in  favor  of  any  well- 
known  Republican  and  opposed  to  any  old  fogy;" 
"  New  York  —  George  W.  Curtis,  the  author,  for 
Seward  first,  with  a  warm  side  for  C."  Little 
comfort,  however,  was  to  be  had  from  the  choice 
of  delegates.  New  York  sent  a  solid  delegation 
of  Seward  men  ;  Pennsylvania,  except  six  dele 
gates,  of  Cameron  men  (to  leave  their  candidate 
when  the  expected  consideration  was  offered) ;  Illi 
nois,  of  Lincoln  men.  In  order  to  have  any  hope 
of  nomination  or  any  standing  in  the  convention, 


THE   ELECTION  OF  1860  189 

Chase  must  also  have  a  unanimous  and  interested 
delegation  from  Ohio.  On  March  3  the  Ohio 
Kepublican  convention  did  indeed  vote  by  385  to 
69  that  Salmon  P.  Chase  was  the  first  choice  of 
Ohio,  but  it  relegated  the  choice  of  delegates  to 
the  local  conventions,  and  thus  designedly  gave 
the  opportunity  for  Chase's  enemies  to  send  men 
unpledged,  or  even  opposed  to  him.  Although 
Chase  did  not  realize  it,  by  this  action  his  last 
chance  was  gone,  many  weeks  before  the  Chicago 
Convention  met. 

Through  the  district  conventions  several  former 
anti-Chase  men  got  in.  Old  Judge  McLean  could 
neither  give  up  his  presidential  hopes  nor  forgive 
Chase  for  his  part  against  him  in  the  Free-Soil 
contest  of  1848,  and  he  picked  up  some  delegates 
in  southern  Ohio.  Senator  Wade  had  his  own 
views  as  to  who  was  the  ablest  Eepublican  in  Ohio, 
and  his  friends  got  delegates  in  northern  Ohio, 
especially  D.  K.  Cartter  of  Cleveland,  later  chief 
justice  of  the  District  of  Columbia.  Although 
Hoadly,  one  of  Chase's  nearest  friends,  had  warned 
him  in  February  that  he  did  not  stand  the  slightest 
chance,  Chase  was  buoyant,  and  ten  days  before 
the  Chicago  Convention  was  sure  that  the  Ohio 
delegates  would  vote  solidly  for  him,  and  that  he 
would  be  nominated,  if  his  friends  "  had  the  means 
and  the  activity  used  by  Mr.  Seward's." 

As  the  time  for  the  convention  approached, 
Chase  found  a  few  friends  and  stanch  delegates 
from  other  States  ;  but  he  got  glimpses  also  of  a 


190  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

stratum  of  intrigue  into  which  he  could  not  de 
scend.  The  Spragues  were  said  to  have  bought  the 
Rhode  Island  state  election  for  $100,000,  and  some 
of  the  Rhode  Island  delegates  were  "  purchasable  ;  " 
some  delegates  from  Iowa  were  "  on  the  trading 
tack,"  and  in  Indiana  there  was  a  "  floating  and 
marketable  vote."  A  Philadelphia  editor  wrote  to 
him  with  unblushing  frankness  that  he  had  worked 
for  Cameron,  but  that  "if  any  little  sub-contract 
could  be  given  us  which  would  enable  us  to  realize 
a  little  profit,  we  would  endeavor  to  serve  Ohio  to 
the  full  extent  of  our  ability."  But  neither  Rhode 
Island,  Pennsylvania,  Iowa,  nor  Indiana  gave  any 
votes  for  Chase  at  Chicago. 

The  convention  which  met  at  Chicago  on  May 
16,  1860,  was  a  tumultuous  body,  excited  by  the 
roars  of  an  unusual  number  of  spectators.  The 
state  elections  of  1859  and  early  1860  made  it 
practically  certain  that  all  New  England  would 
give  its  electoral  vote  for  any  man  nominated  in 
Chicago ;  the  Northwestern  States  —  Michigan, 
Wisconsin,  Iowa,  and  the  recently  admitted  Min 
nesota  —  seemed  also  safe.  Hence  the  fighting 
had  to  be  done  in  the  six  doubtful  States  between 
the  ocean  and  the  Mississippi,  —  New  York,  New 
Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois. 
Out  of  these,  only  New  York  and  Ohio  had  been 
Republican  in  1856  ;  and  Illinois  was  Douglas's 
State,  and  had  been  carried  for  him  in  1858. 
Hence  the  problem  before  the  convention,  or  rather 
before  the  controlling  spirits  among  the  delegates, 


THE  ELECTION   OF  1860  191 

was  really,  Who  can  carry  all  the  States  of  Penn 
sylvania,  Indiana,  and  Illinois? 

The  Seward  men  were  confident  that  their  can 
didate  could  carry  anything,  and  the  New  York 
delegation  of  70  was  backed  up  by  a  great  and 
enthusiastic  band  of  politicians  who  argued,  shouted, 
and  paraded  uproariously.  Edward  L.  Pierce,  one 
of  the  few  earnest  Chase  men  in  New  England,  was 
bottled  up  in  the  Massachusetts  delegation,  and  had 
to  vote  for  Seward.  The  Seward  men  could  at 
the  outset  count  up  nearly  200  delegates  out  of  the 
233  necessary  to  nominate  ;  but  there  were  two 
weak  elements  in  their  calculations, — the  unde 
served  reputation  of  their  candidate  as  an  extreme 
anti-slavery  man,  and  the  relentless  hostility  of 
Greeley  and  some  other  New  York  Republicans. 

The  next  candidate  in  apparent  strength  was 
Chase ;  the  Ohio  delegation  of  46  was  inferior  in 
size  only  to  those  of  Pennsylvania  and  New  York ; 
coming  from  a  Western  State,  it  could  appeal  to  a 
growing  conviction  that  a  Western  man  must  be 
found  to  confront  Douglas.  The  situation  had 
some  strength,  in  case  it  should  be  found  that 
Seward  could  get  no  majority.  Therefore  Chase's 
friends  made  the  most  of  his  integrity  of  character 
as  compared  with  Seward' s  loose  financial  admin 
istration,  of  his  unwavering  devotion  to  anti-slavery 
as  compared  with  Cameron's  recent  conversion,  and 
of  his  proved  ability  as  a  public  officer  as  compared 
with  Lincoln's  inexperience.  Just  before  the  con 
vention  George  Opdyke  of  New  York  urged  the 


192  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

nomination  of  Chase  as  a  former  Democrat,  and 
hence  likely  to  draw  from  Douglas  ;  he  was  confi 
dent  that  a  combination  of  Chase's  friends  with  the 
Banks  men  and  the  Blairs  could  control  the  con 
vention. 

But  Chase  was  now  to  learn  the  bitter  lesson 
that  the  approval  of  a  popular  vote  in  Ohio,  twice 
given,  did  not  secure  for  him  the  cordial  aid  of  all 
the  Ohio  Kepublicans.  The  old  Whig  element  had 
never  forgiven  him  for  his  combination  with  the 
Democrats  in  the  senatorial  election  twelve  years 
before  ;  his  use  of  his  scanty  patronage  as  governor 
had  made  some  new  enemies ;  and  he  had  not  the 
art  of  disarming  opponents  by  suavity  and  tact. 
Had  there  been  an  Ohio  manager  at  this  juncture 
to  compel  the  forces  of  the  State  to  pull  in  the 
same  parallel ;  and  above  all  had  Chase  ever  gained 
the  friendship  and  confidence  of  the  Republican 
leaders  in  other  States,  —  senators,  congressmen, 
governors,  and  chieftains,  —  he  might  perhaps  have 
been  nominated,  notwithstanding  his  reputation  for 
abolitionism. 

On  the  very  first  ballot  in  the  convention,  it  was 
seen  that  Chase  was  out  of  the  race.  The  Ohio 
delegation  was  divided,  Chase  receiving  only  34 
out  of  46,  and  the  total  Chase  vote  was  only  49 
out  of  465.  On  the  second  ballot,  since  there  was 
no  rally  ing-point  in  the  Ohio  delegation,  Chase  sank 
to  42|,  and  on  the  third  ballot  only  15  Ohio  men 
still  adhered  to  him.  This  danger  of  a  divided 
Ohio  vote  had  been  foreseen ;  and  inasmuch  as  the 


THE  ELECTION   OF  1860  193 

favorable  recommendation  of  the  Ohio  state  con 
vention  was  not  accepted  as  an  instruction,  Chase 
had  urged  his  friends  to  secure  a  vote  of  the  dele 
gation  pledging  a  unit  rule.  The  Ohio  delegation, 
wrote  a  correspondent  to  Chase,  "  shut  themselves 
up  discussing  what  it  was  impossible  to  determine 
beforehand,  —  how  long  they  should  vote  for  you 
as  a  unit,  and  what  other  Ohio  man  they  should 
vote  for  as  a  unit.  This  continued  Tuesday, 
Wednesday,  and  part  of  Thursday.  Then  when 
they  determined  to  vote  their  preferences  they 
worked  some.  But  in  the  meantime  those  bent  on 
defeating  Seward  combined  to  a  great  extent  on 
Lincoln." 

Delegates  who  attended  these  long  sessions  have 
revealed  the  secret  of  the  division  in  Ohio.  Against 
the  proposed  unit  rule,  which  was  Chase's  sole 
chance,  some  of  Chase's  warm  adherents  voted, 
because  on  arrival  in  Chicago  they  found  that  so 
many  men  were  saying  that  Chase  could  not  carry 
the  doubtful  States,  or  even  Ohio,  that  'they  lost 
heart ;  and  they  feared  that  when  Chase  was  out  of 
the  way,  Wade  with  his  many  friends  in  the  Ohio 
delegation  would  sweep  the  Western  delegates.  An 
other  element  of  Chase's  ablest  supporters,  —  David 
Dudley  Field,  Hiram  Barney,  and  George  Opdyke 
of  New  York,  —  when  they  found  his  weakness  in 
Ohio,  went  over  to  the  most  promising  candidate 
then  available,  that  is,  to  Lincoln ;  and  thus  Chase 
suddenly  lost  support  both  in  and  out  of  his  State. 

That  the  danger  from  Wade  was  overestimated, 


194  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

and  perhaps  imaginary,  seems  almost  certain,  as 
we  look  back  on  the  affair.  Wade  was  an  old 
Whig,  a  very  violent  partisan,  of  rough  and  bois 
terous  temper,  without  the  prestige  of  support  by 
his  own  state  convention.  If  Chase  were  really 
out  of  the  way,  Lincoln  was  the  strongest  Western 
candidate  and  the  one  most  acceptable  to  Chase ; 
Lincoln  was  also  the  second  choice  of  Indiana  and 
Pennsylvania,  the  two  States  which  really  had  a 
right  to  insist  on  a  nomination  which  would  satisfy 
them,  because  their  vote  was  indispensable.  Al 
though  correspondents  assured  Chase  that  nine 
tenths  of  the  Republican  voters  in  Ohio  desired 
his  nomination,  an  intimate  friend  in  the  conven 
tion  told  him  that  there  were  "not  more  than  a 
dozen  of  the  whole  delegation  earnestly  desiring  or 
working  for  you ;  "  and  Brinkerhoff  said :  "  The 
truth  is,  the  old  Whigs  of  this  State  are  extremely 
hostile  to  you ;  even  [John]  Sherman,  who  is  as 
liberal  a  Whig  of  the  old  school  as  I  know  of,  and 
has  a  high  regard  for  you,  yet  I  am  satisfied  is 
secretly  a  Seward  man." 

The  turn  of  the  votes,  however,  gave  Chase's 
friends  a  chance  to  do  a  service  to  Lincoln.  At 
the  end  of  the  third  ballot,  when  he  lacked  one 
and  a  half  votes  of  a  nomination,  four  votes  were 
suddenly  transferred  to  him  by  Ohio  delegates, 
for  reasons  thus  frankly  explained  to  Chase  by  one 
of  the  delegation :  "  The  fifteen  adhering  to  you 
had  it  in  their  power  to  nominate  Mr.  Lincoln  and 
did  it.  This  places  us  in  good  position  with  the 


THE  ELECTION  OF   1860  195 

Illinois  delegation,  and  leaves  you  right  with  the 
incoming  administration." 

That  Lincoln  felt  amicably  was  shown  a  few 
days  later  by  a  remark  which  he  made  about  Chase 
to  George  Opdyke :  "I  prefer  him  to  myself ; 
for  Dr.  Branford  says  Governor  Chase  combines 
greater  executive,  administrative  and  high  states 
manlike  ability  than  any  man  living."  In  May, 
1861,  Chase  wrote  a  cordial  note  of  congratula 
tion  to  Lincoln,  in  which,  however,  he  could  not 
forbear  saying  :  "  I  err  greatly  in  my  estimation 
of  your  magnanimity  if  you  do  not  condemn,  as  I 
do,  the  conduct  of  delegates  from  whatever  State 
who  disregard,  while  acting  as  such,  the  clearly 
expounded  preference  of  their  own  state  conven 
tion." 

Chase  had  come  nearer  to  the  coveted  dignity 
than  he  was  ever  again  to  come,  for  this  was  the 
last  time  that  he  had  any  votes  in  a  Republican 
nominating  convention.  His  very  greatness  made 
him  a  weak  candidate ;  he  does  not  appear  to  have 
made  the  slightest  concession  or  concealment  of 
his  principles,  further  than  to  recommend  a  plat 
form  of  generalities  and  a  candidate  "  whose  name 
would  be  a  platform."  None  of  his  correspondents 
refer  even  to  the  usual  promises  of  cabinet  places 
and  other  offices  as  a  means  of  influencing  votes. 
Chase,  like  Lincoln,  had  no  body  of  rich  and 
powerful  friends  to  make  a  campaign  for  him. 
His  situation  and  his  chances  are  well  summed  up 
in  the  apothegm  of  a  friend :  "  If  the  Republican 


196  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

party  is  consistent,  it  will  nominate  Seward,  and 
if  it  is  not  consistent,  it  won't  nominate  you." 

In  the  campaign  Chase  was  active,  but  not  con 
spicuous.  His  State,  by  its  Republican  plurality 
of  21,000  in  October,  presaged  a  triumph  in  No 
vember.  When,  therefore,  on  November  6,  Lin 
coln  and  Hamlin  got  180  of  the  303  electoral  votes, 
it  was  found  that  Ohio  gave  Lincoln  a  plurality 
of  44,000  over  Douglas,  and  a  clear  majority  of 
21,000.  It  has  often  been  said  that  Lincoln's  elec 
tion  was  due  to  the  Democratic  split  and  the  exist 
ence  of  four  tickets.  Study  of  the  returns,  how 
ever,  shows  that  had  Lincoln  or  Chase  or  any  other 
respectable  Republican  been  the  candidate  against 
Douglas  alone,  or  Breckinridge  alone,  or  Bell  alone, 
or  any  two  of  these  candidates,  he  would  still  have 
been  elected  by  small  Republican  majorities  in  the 
free  States;  for  in  every  Northern  State  except 
New  Jersey,  California,  and  Oregon,  Lincoln  had 
more  votes  than  his  three  adversaries  combined. 

To  Chase  the  result  was,  notwithstanding  his 
personal  disappointment,  the  crowning  of  his  life 
work  up  to  that  time.  The  day  after  the  election 
he  wrote  to  Pierce :  "  How  superb  is  the  Republi 
can  triumph  !  At  length  the  first  of  the  great 
wishes  of  my  life  is  accomplished.  The  slave 
power  is  overthrown.  When  will  the  other,  namely 
the  denationalization  of  slavery  and  the  consequent 
initiation  of  emancipation  by  state  action,  be  re 
alized?" 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   CRITICAL   YEAR    1861 

"THE  very  first  thing  that  I  settled  in  my 
mind,"  said  Lincoln  in  an  account  of  the  result  of 
the  election  of  1860,  "was  that  these  two  great 
leaders  of  the  party  should  occupy  the  two  first 
places  in  my  cabinet."  The  two  great  leaders 
were  Seward  and  Chase,  and  the  first  places  were 
the  State  Department  and  the  Treasury;  but  it 
was  not  till  after  Mr.  Lincoln  was  inaugurated  as 
President,  in  March,  1861,  that  he  could  count  un 
reservedly  upon  the  services  of  either  of  the  two 
men.  While  he  "  was  musing  the  fire  burned ;  " 
before  he  could  frame  a  policy  or  form  a  cabinet, 
the  country  had  begun  to  shrink,  and  on  the  day 
of  his  inauguration  fourteen  seats  in  the  Senate 
had  been  vacated.  Yet  in  the  midst  of  the  popu 
lar  excitement  and  uncertainty,  Lincoln  struck  out 
a  policy  of  no-compromise,  compelled  Seward  to 
accept  it,  inspirited  Chase,  managed  his  party  in 
Congress,  and  drew  into  his  cabinet  every  man 
upon  whom  he  had  set  his  heart. 

The  political  problem  was  appalling.  Ever  since 
the  introduction  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  in 
January,  1854,  the  country  had  been  divided  on 


198  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

the  question  of  territorial  slavery  ;  the  Republican 
platform  of  1860  was  absolutely  opposed  to  the 
creation  of  any  new  slaveholding  region,  whether 
by  annexation,  by  territorial  laws,  or  by  the 
admission  of  a  new  slave  State,  while  the  Southern 
Democrats  in  the  campaign  of  1860  demanded,  as 
the  least  that  they  would  accept,  positive  pro 
tection  to  slavery  in  the  Territories  by  federal 
statute.  To  the  minds  of  the  Republicans,  the 
whole  secession  agitation  was  simply  a  device  to 
deprive  them  of  what  they  had  gained  by  electing 
a  President,  and  to  compel  them  to  accept  a  pro- 
slavery  policy.  Before  enlisting  his  cabinet  minis 
ters,  therefore,  it  was  necessary  for  Lincoln  to 
make  clear  to  them  the  solution  of  the  crisis  as  he 
saw  it,  and  to  come  to  an  understanding  as  to  the 
future  of  an  administration  which  many  people 
asserted  could  never  be  formed  at  all.  Hence,  for 
a  full  month  after  his  election  he  made  no  offer  of 
any  place  in  his  cabinet. 

Meanwhile  the  status  of  political  affairs  changed 
from  week  to  week,  as  the  secession  leaders  de 
veloped  their  plans,  as  the  border  States  became 
conscious  of  the  difference  between  their  interests 
and  those  of  the  gulf  States,  and  as  President 
Buchanan's  do-nothing  policy  stood  revealed.  On 
the  day  after  the  presidential  election  the  legisla 
ture  of  South  Carolina  began  to  prepare  for  seces 
sion,  and  from  that  time  on  the  keenest  observers 
believed  that  the  clisunionists  were  in  earnest,  and 
that  the  crisis  could  be  met  only  by  one  or  another 


THE  CRITICAL  YEAR   1861  199 

of  three  courses,  —  by  accepting  secession,  by  com 
promise,  or  by  coercion.  Though  all  the  three 
methods  were  urged  at  the  same  time,  each  had  its 
opportunity  in  one  of  three  successive  periods  : 
peaceable  acceptance  of  secession  was  put  forward 
especially  during  November,  1860 ;  compromise 
was  demanded  during  December  to  stay  the  cotton 
States,  and  during  January  and  February  to  pla 
cate  the  border  States ;  and  people  talked  of  coer 
cion  during  March  and  April. 

During  the  first  of  these  epochs  Chase  was  sim 
ply  a  senator-elect,  and  for  two  months  he  was 
little  consulted  by  the  party  leaders,  and  not  at  all 
by  Mr.  Lincoln.  His  correspondents  kept  him 
informed  of  the  drift  of  affairs  in  Washington  ;  and 
he  knew  that  in  a  meeting  of  the  Ohio  delegation, 
on  December  18,  Senator  Pugh  scoffed  at  any 
attempt  to  retain  the  seceding  States  by  force,  and 
Representative  Vallandigham  predicted  that  by 
inauguration  day  Washington  would  be  in  the 
hands  of  "  a  foreign  government."  The  belief 
that  the  Union  was  no  union  was  not  confined 
to  Breckinridge  Democrats,  for  the  Republican 
journalist  and  leader,  Horace  Greeley,  was  in  the 
clearest  tones  preaching  non-resistance  ;  on  Novem 
ber  9,  1860,  his  New  York  "  Tribune  "  declared 
that  "  if  the  cotton  States  shall  decide  that  they 
can  do  better  out  of  the  Union  than  in  it,  we 
insist  on  letting  them  go  in  peace."  Extremists 
like  William  Lloyd  Garrison  of  course  were  de 
lighted  at  the  opportunity  to  free  the  Union  from 


200  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

its  slaveholding  contingent ;  and  thousands  of 
Northern  Republicans  saw  no  legal  or  practicable 
way  of  resisting  secession,  however  wrong  it  might 
be  and  however  disastrous  it  might  prove. 

Chase  meanwhile  seemed  to  be  waiting  for  some 
thing.  For  many  weeks  he  expressed  no  public 
opinion  on  the  crisis  ;  but  at  last,  on  November  30, 
he  wrote  to  his  sister-in-law,  Mrs.  Hunt  of  New 
Orleans,  a  letter  apparently  intended  for  publi 
cation,  in  which  he  said  distinctly  :  "  I  abhor  the 
very  idea  of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union.  If  I  were 
President  I  would  indeed  exhaust  every  expedient 
of  forbearance  consistent  with  safety.  But  at  all 
hazards  and  against  all  opposition  the  laws  of  the 
Union  should  be  enforced."  These  sentences  in 
brief  form  describe  Chase's  line  of  policy  down  to 
the  firing  on  Fort  Sumter,  a  policy  which  involved 
concessions  by  grace  of  the  new  ad  ministration,  but 
none  by  act  of  Congress. 

A  new  phase  of  the  question  was  opened  up 
when  Congress  met  in  December,  1860 ;  for  the 
responsibility  of  preserving  the  Union  was  then 
thrown  jointly  upon  President  Buchanan  and  the 
two  Houses  at  Washington,  with  neither  of  which 
powers  Chase  had  influence  at  that  time.  Seward, 
on  the  other  hand,  had  been  in  conference  with 
Lincoln,  and  on  December  8  was  notified  that  the 
secretaryship  of  state  would  be  offered  him.  As  a 
leading  senator  he  played  a  large  part  in  the  first 
effort  for  a  compromise ;  an  editorial  in  the 
Albany  "  Evening  Journal  "  inspired  by  his  inti- 


THE   CRITICAL  YEAR   1861  201 

mate  friend  and  manager,  Thurlow  Weed,  strongly 
urged  compromise  and  a  constitutional  convention. 
During  December  an  attempt  was  made  to  find 
some  halfway  point  which  would  satisfy  South 
Carolina  and  the  other  cotton  States.  A  com 
mittee  of  thirty-three  in  the  House,  appointed 
December  6,  undertook  the  task,  and  on  December 
13  voted  to  recommend  "  additional  and  more 
specific  and  effective  guarantees  of  the  constitu 
tional  rights  of  the  South ; "  but  the  next  day 
thirty  Southern  members  of  Congress  united  in  a 
public  address,  stating  that  in  their  judgment  no 
compromise  would  be  offered  that  the  South  could 
accept.  No  delay  was  effected  in  South  Carolina, 
where  on  December  20  a  convention  declared  the 
State  no  longer  a  part  of  the  Union. 

The  Senate  Committee  of  Thirteen  did  not  meet 
till  December  21,  and  the  only  hope  of  compromise 
then  was  to  make  such  an  offer  to  the  Southern 
members  of  that  committee  as  would  recall  South 
Carolina.  It  fell  to  Seward  to  frame  the  Republi 
can  concessions.  He  agreed  to  an  amendment  to 
the  Constitution  denying  the  right  of  Congress  to 
interfere  with  slavery  in  the  States,  and  he  was 
also  willing  to  ask  the  repeal  of  the  personal 
liberty  bills  ;  but  he  would  go  no  further,  and 
coupled  his  proposals  with  a  demand  for  a  jury 
trial  of  alleged  fugitives,  a  proposition  very  un 
palatable  to  the  South.  The  border -state  men 
then  proposed  the  Crittenden  compromise,  of 
which  the  essence  was  to  fix  slavery  in  all  the 


202  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

Territories  south  of  36°  30'.  Though  SewarcTs  own 
judgment  tended  toward  compromise,  he  refused 
to  accept  this  plan,  and  we  now  know  that  he  was 
carrying  out  the  expressed  wishes  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  and  gaining  his  first  experience  of  sub 
ordination  to  the  will  of  that  masterful  man.  The 
committee  broke  up  without  result,  and  within  five 
weeks  six  more  States  had  seceded. 

In  January,  1861,  Chase  at  last  found  his  bear 
ings,  for  he  was  then  approached  by  Lincoln  upon 
the  subject  of  taking  a  cabinet  position.  That  he 
should  expect  such  an  offer  was  natural ;  he  stood 
for  the  principle  of  aggressive  political  anti-slavery, 
which  had  furnished  a  large  element  in  the  North 
ern  majorities ;  he  had  a  good  reputation  for  polit 
ical  skill  as  well  as  for  ability ;  he  was  probably 
the  most  distinguished  of  the  former  Democrats 
then  in  the  Republican  party ;  and  he  was  one  of 
the  few  leaders  who  had  shown  to  Lincoln  personal 
sympathy  in  his  struggle  with  Douglas  in  1858. 
Letters  to  three  different  friends,  on  November  10, 
1860,  show  that  he  had  gone  through  the  process 
of  not  definitely  making  up  his  mind  to  refuse 
cabinet  office,  long  before  Lincoln  had  come  to  the 
point  of  offering  it  to  him ;  and  he  had  evidently 
decided  that  the  secretaryship  of  state  was  suited 
to  his  powers,  and  would  be  a  proper  recognition 
of  his  services.  It  seems  probable  that  he  felt  it 
to  be  prudent  to  keep  silence  during  November, 
till  Lincoln  had  declared  himself  on  secession. 

On  December  31  Lincoln  at  last  decided  to  tele- 


THE   CRITICAL   YEAR   1861  203 

graph  Chase  to  visit  him.  The  conference  lasted 
two  days,  and  was  embarrassing  to  both.  Lin 
coln  began  by  asking  "  whether  you  will  accept 
the  appointment  of  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
without,  however,  [my]  being  exactly  prepared  to 
make  you  that  offer."  Chase  replied  with  good 
sense  and  good  temper  that,  if  Seward  were  to 
have  the  State  Department,  he  should  not  refuse 
the  Treasury  for  any  reason  of  pique.  When  they 
parted,  neither  man  stood  committed ;  but  there 
was  a  tacit  understanding  that  Mr.  Lincoln  wanted 
Chase,  and  probably  could  have  him  if  he  insisted. 
Chase  later  wrote  upon  the  qualified  proposition : 
"  Had  it  been  made  earlier  and  with  the  same 
promptitude  and  definiteness  as  that  to  Mr.  Sew 
ard,  I  should  have  been  inclined  to  make  some 
sacrifices."  What  was  really  accomplished  was 
the  bringing  of  both  statesmen  to  an  understanding 
with  the  future  President ;  thenceforward  Chase 
felt  that  he  was  included  in  the  circle  of  Lin 
coln's  advisers  and  probable  ministers.  A  few 
days  after  the  interview  he  even  took  Seward  so 
far  into  his  confidence  as  to  write  that  they  had  "  a 
common  interest ;  "  and  eloquently  counseled  him 
and  Thaddeus  Stevens  "  to  give  countenance  to  no, 
scheme  of  compromise  "  and  to  offer  no  "  conces 
sions  of  principle." 

The  question  before  the  country  was  no  longer 
secession,  for  by  the  middle  of  January  disunion 
was  an  accomplished  fact;  it  was  whether  the 
border  States  could  be  kept  in  the  Union.  After 


204  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

January  1  the  only  hope  of  finding  common  ground 
for  border-state  loyal  Democrats  and  Northern  Re 
publicans  was  in  Crittenden's  compromise ;  but  on 
a  test  vote  of  January  16,  1861,  the  Republicans, 
who  now  had  a  majority  in  the  Senate,  refused  to 
support  the  measure.  Three  days  later,  as  a  last 
step,  the  Virginia  legislature  called  a  "  Peace  Con 
ference,"  to  be  held  in  Washington.  Meantime 
Chase  had  set  forth  his  solution  of  the  difficulty  in 
a  phrase  which  rang  throughout  the  country,  "  In 
auguration  first,  adjustment  afterwards;  "  and  as 
one  of  the  Ohio  commissioners  to  the  Peace  Con 
ference,  at  last  he  had  some  opportunity  to  affect 
the  settlement  of  the  issue.  In  the  Conference, 
which  sat  from  February  4  to  February  27,  he  was 
the  leader  of  the  non-compromisers.  Nevertheless, 
for  some  weeks  he  had  hopes  of  "  an  agreement 
on  something  which,  without  compromising  our 
course  or  our  party  at  all,  will  yet  help  to  an 
amicable  understanding."  This  "something"  was 
a  plan  for  a  general  constitutional  convention,  and 
its  chief  advantage  was  that  it  would  postpone 
action  till  the  new  administration  could  be  seated. 
Behind  the  plan  of  delay  was  a  purpose  eventu 
ally  to  offer  a  scheme  of  concession,  to  be  drawn 
up  by  the  Republican  administration  as  a  peace 
offering ;  but  at  no  time  in  his  public  career  did 
Chase  more  distinctly  set  forth  the  ultimate  author 
ity  of  the  national  government  than  in  his  one  long 
speech  in  the  Conference.  "  If  the  President  does 
his  duty,"  said  he,  "  and  undertakes  to  enforce  the 


THE  CRITICAL  YEAR  1861  205 

laws,  and  secession  or  revolution  results,  what  then  ? 
War !  Civil  war ! "  The  Conference  took  the 
line  of  concession  by  recommending  to  Congress 
an  amendment  substantially  identical  with  the 
Crittenden  compromise ;  it  was  a  third  time  re 
jected  ;  and  the  insoluble  problem  was  turned  over 
to  Lincoln's  administration. 

The  two  things  for  which  the  country  now  looked 
with  eager  interest  were  the  inaugural  address,  as 
an  earnest  of  the  President's  policy,  and  the  list  of 
his  cabinet  advisers,  which  would  reveal  the  influ 
ences  in  his  administration.  The  address  proved 
to  be  steadfast  against  a  constitutional  right  of 
secession  ;  and  the  names  of  the  members  of  the 
cabinet  showed  that  the  President  would  have  good 
support  in  trying  to  save  the  Union.  During  the 
two  months  since  Chase's  interview  with  Lincoln 
in  Springfield,  he  had  never  received  a  distinct  pro 
mise  of  the  Treasury,  though  he  was  told  at  second 
or  third  hand  that  Lincoln  had  decided  upon  him. 
Meanwhile  the  friends  of  Cameron  continued  vig 
orous  efforts  to  set  Chase  aside,  in  order  that 
their  favorite  might  have  the  coveted  Treasury 
portfolio.  Chase  was  described  as  a  free-trader, 
who  could  not  be  trusted  to  carry  out  the  new  Mor- 
rill  protective  tariff ;  he  was  assailed  as  a  former 
Democrat ;  he  was  held  up  as  the  rival  and  enemy 
of  Seward.  Months  afterward  a  correspondent 
described  how,  a  few  days  before  the  inauguration, 
on  Lincoln's  refusal  to  strike  Chase  out  of  his  list, 
Thurlow  Weed  came  away  in  a  rage,  declaring 


206  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

that  "  Mr.  Chase  had  been  placed  in  the  cabinet  to 
control  the  patronage  and  appointments  in  the  city 
and  State  of  Xew  York,  to  prevent  Governor  Sew- 
ard  from  controlling  the  appointments,  and  to  de 
prive  him  [Mr.  Weed]  of  all  power  and  influence." 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  Lincoln  insisted 
upon  appointing  Chase  because  he  expected  him  to 
back  up  the  anti-Seward  men  in  New  York ;  but 
it  is  equally  unlikely  that  he  discovered  in  him  the 
qualities  of  a  great  financier,  or  indeed  that  he  felt 
any  need  of  a  great  financier.  It  is  more  probable 
that  he  selected  him  as  a  representative  of  a  large 
body  of  radical  Republicans,  as  a  strong  rival  for 
the  nomination,  and  as  one  of  those  former  Demo 
crats  whom  he  intended  to  use  as  a  balance  to  the 
old  Whigs  in  his  cabinet,  while  at  the  same  time 
he  had  a  genuine  respect  for  Chase's  character  and 
abilities. 

To  the  last  moment  Chase  had  no  positive  assur 
ance  that  he  would  be  appointed,  and  he  was  not 
consulted  about  the  rest  of  the  cabinet  slate ;  hence 
he  could  truthfully  say  that  the  sending  his  nomi 
nation  to  the  Senate  was  a  surprise  to  him.  How 
ever  honorable  the  secretaryship,  his  pride  was 
hurt  by  the  long  delay ;  and,  like  Seward,  he  hesi 
tated  to  give  up  his  safe  senatorship  without  some 
guaranty  as  to  the  policy  of  the  President.  At 
any  rate,  he  held  off  till  Lincoln  in  a  personal 
interview  insisted  that  he  should  accept,  and  prob 
ably  gave  him  some  assurance  as  to  his  purposes 
toward  secession.  Of  the  weight  of  financial  re- 


THE   CRITICAL   YEAR   1861  207 

sponsibilities  which  he  was  taking  upon  himself  he 
seems  to  have  had  at  the  beginning  no  inkling,  and 
there  were  many  times  during  the  next  four  years 
when  he  wished  that  he  had  retained  his  seat  in  the 
Senate. 

On  the  second  day  of  the  existence  of  the  new 
cabinet,  Elizur  Wright  wrote  to  Chase  in  praise  of 
the  inaugural  address :  "  The  whole  drift  shows 
that  the  new  President's  heart  is  in  the  right  place, 
and  that,  though  far  in  advance  of  the  average 
North,  he  knows  how  to  make  it  follow  him." 
Before  the  North  could  follow,  however,  it  was 
necessary  to  know  who  was  the  leader ;  and  to 
several  of  the  members  of  his  own  cabinet  Lincoln 
seemed  inferior  to  themselves  in  initiative,  in  abili 
ties,  in  experience,  in  administrative  powers,  and  in 
public  confidence. 

For  a  month  or  more  Seward  continued  to  be 
lieve  that  he  was  to  be  the  head  of  the  new  admin 
istration,  an  attitude  which  he  had  unconsciously 
assumed  in  the  previous  congressional  discussions 
on  compromise.  During  the  weeks  preceding  Sum- 
ter,  while  Seward  was  testing  the  will  of  the  Presi 
dent,  Chase  set  himself  in  a  business-like  fashion  to 
the  duties  of  his  office.  Many  of  his  friends  had 
predicted  that  he  and  Seward  could  not  sit  in  the 
same  cabinet ;  but  from  the  first  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  sought  to  establish  friendly  relations 
with  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  mutual  friends 
were  authorized  to  express  good  will.  If  Chase 
had  any  notion  of  controlling  the  President,  it  was 


208  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

not  through  personal  ascendency :  the  most  that 
he  ever  sought  was  to  make  the  cabinet,  as  a  board 
of  advisers,  more  powerful  than  the  President. 

The  relation  of  the  President  with  his  seven 
adjuncts  was  first  distinctly  defined  in  their  discus 
sions  on  the  status  of  Fort  Sumter  soon  after  the 
inauguration.  All  the  government  posts  in  the 
seceding  section  had  been  seized  and  occupied, 
except  Fort  Pickens,  Key  West  and  the  Dry  Tor- 
tugas,  and  Fort  Sumter,  which  last  was  occupied  by 
a  garrison  under  Major  Anderson.  The  authori 
ties  of  South  Carolina,  and  later  those  of  the  Con 
federacy,  had  demanded  the  surrender  of  the  forts, 
but  had  finally  been  induced  to  wait  for  the  new 
administration ;  and  Sumter,  which  commanded 
one  of  the  few  Southern  cities,  at  once  became  the 
turning-point  in  the  whole  controversy.  To  yield 
it  would  be  practically  to  acknowledge  the  success 
of  secession ;  to  reinforce  it  would  begin  civil  war. 

The  appearance  of  three  new  Confederate  com 
missioners  in  Washington  compelled  Lincoln's  at 
tention.  General  Scott  was  consulted,  and  on 
March  11,  1861,  he  pointed  out  the  military  diffi 
culties,  and  discouraged  any  attempt  to  retain  the 
forts,  It  was  in  this  exigency,  on  March  15,  that 
the  President  took  the  written  opinions  of  his 
advisers.  The  question  which  'the  President  had 
to  settle  was  really  neither  constitutional  nor  mili 
tary  nor  political ;  it  was  the  state  of  mind  of  the 
Northern  people  ;  and  this  no  member  of  the  cabi 
net  could  ascertain,  because  the  people  themselves 


THE   CRITICAL  YEAR   1861  209 

did  not  understand  their  own  minds.  On  the 
critical  question  of  relieving  Fort  Sumter,  there 
fore,  only  one  of  the  seven,  Montgomery  Blair, 
expressed  the  opinion  that  it  was  worth  while  to 
put  to  a  test  the  support  which  the  nation  might 
give  to  bold  measures.  Seward  and  Chase  were 
at  one  in  advising  that  no  step  should  be  taken 
which  would  lead  to  hostilities  ;  but  Chase  drew 
the  deduction  that  the  simple  provisioning  of  a  fort 
ought  not  to  lead,  and  would  not  lead,  to  civil  war. 

This  was  one  of  the  few  periods  of  wavering 
judgment  in  Chase's  life.  His  best  friends  were 
overwhelming  him  with  letters  urging  him  to  stand 
by  Fort  Sumter ;  but  he  preferred  another  policy, 
which  he  expected  to  be  effective  in  keeping  the 
border  States  in  the  Union,  and  which  he  thus 
frankly  explained  in  a  letter  of  April  20,  1861 :  — 

"  True  it  is  that  before  the  assault  on  Fort  Sum 
ter,  in  anticipation  of  an  attempt  to  provision  fam 
ishing  soldiers  of  the  Union,  I  was  decidedly  in 
favor  of  a  positive  policy  and  against  the  notion  of 
drifting,  —  the  Micawber-like  policy  of  waiting  for 
something  to  turn  up. 

"  As  a  positive  policy  two  alternatives  were 
plainly  before  us :  1.  That  of  enforcing  the  laws 
of  the  Union  by  its  whole  power  and  through  its 
whole  extent ;  or,  2.  That  of  recognizing  the  organ 
ization  of  actual  government  by  the  seven  seceded 
States  as  an  accomplished  revolution,  accomplished 
through  the  complicity  of  the  late  administration, 
and  letting  that  Confederacy  try  its  experiment  of 


210  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

separation,  but  maintaining  the  authority  of  the 
Union  and  treating  secession  as  treason  every 
where  else. 

"  Knowing  that  the  former  of  these  alternatives 
involved  destructive  war  and  vast  expenditure  and 
oppressive  debt,  and  thinking  it  possible  that 
through  the  latter  these  great  evils  might  be 
avoided,  and  the  Union  of  the  other  States  pre 
served  unbroken  ;  the  return  even  of  the  seceded 
States,  after  an  unsatisfactory  experiment  of  sepa 
ration  secured  ;  and  the  great  cause  of  freedom  and 
constitutional  government  peacefully  vindicated,  — 
thinking,  I  say,  these  things  possible,  I  preferred 
the  latter  alternative." 

The  error  of  judgment  was  one  from  which  Lin 
coln  alone,  among  the  great  statesmen  of  the  pe 
riod,  was  wholly  free.  He  alone  saw  clearly  at  that 
time  that  secession  must  bring  eventual  war,  and 
that  the  issue  might  as  well  be  met  at  once,  if  only 
the  Northern  people  could  be  roused  to  resistance. 
Chase's  faint  heart  was  speedily  strengthened,  for 
on  March  29,  on  another  call  for  opinions,  he,  as 
well  as  Welles  and  Blair,  advised  reinforcement  at 
all  hazards.  Three  days  later  Seward  submitted 
to  the  President  his  "  Scheme  for  Foreign  Rela 
tions,"  which  in  effect  suggested  that  the  President 
incite  war  on  England  and  France,  and  give  up  to 
him  the  leadership  of  the  administration.  Lincoln 
quietly  put  aside  this  proposal  that  he  abrogate  his 
authority,  and  he  made  his  own  decision  to  try  to 
throw  provisions  into  Fort  Sumter.  The  intention 


THE  CRITICAL  YEAR   1861  211 

having  been  communicated  to  the  Confederate  gov 
ernment,  on  the  morning  of  April  12,  1861,  fire 
was  opened  on  Fort  Sumter.  On  the  14th  it  sur 
rendered,  and  the  dreaded  Civil  War  had  begun. 

The  practical  question  whether  the  North  would 
respond  to  a  call  to  arms  was  answered  once  for 
all  by  the  pouring  forth  of  men  in  answer  to  the 
President's  proclamation  of  April  15.  The  next 
problem  to  be  faced  was  how  an  efficient  army 
could  be  organized  and  brought  to  bear  for  the 
confusion  of  the  Confederacy.  The  regular  army 
was  small,  scattered,  unfitted  for  large  operations, 
and  weakened  by  the  resignations  of  Southern 
officers.  The  question  of  financial  ways  and 
means  was  not  so  clearly  critical  throughout  1861 
as  it  became  later ;  and  hence  for  many  months  the 
new  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  felt  quite  as  much 
responsibility  for  the  army  as  for  the  Treasury,  and 
put  forth  his  greatest  energies  outside  the  bounda 
ries  of  his  own  department. 

In  part  this  martial  activity  of  the  civilian  was 
displayed  at  his  own  suggestion,  in  part  it  was 
expected  and  encouraged  by  the  President,  in  part 
it  was  necessary  on  account  of  the  President's  want 
of  confidence  in  Cameron.  Surely  the  numbers 
and  organization  of  the  army  were  within  the 
province  of  the  War  Department;  but  when  the 
President  by  a  proclamation  of  May  3  called  for 
42,000  three  years'  volunteers  and  for  41,000  reg 
ular  soldiers  and  sailors,  he  turned  to  Chase  and 
not  to  the  Secretary  of  War  to  frame  the  famous 


212  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

"Order  No.  15  "  and  "Order  No.  16,"  which  organ- 
ized  the  new  troops.  When  Congress  reached  the 
subject  it  legalized  the  President's  extra-constitu 
tional  increase  of  the  army,  but  it  greatly  altered 
and  in  Chase's  opinion  diluted  the  Orders. 

In  his  double  labors  the  Secretary  of  the  Trea 
sury  put  forth  his  utmost  strength.  In  May,  1861, 
he  wrote :  "  In  laboring  for  those  objects,  I  know 
hardly  the  least  cessation  and  begin  to  feel  the 
weight  as  well  as  the  strain  of  them.  Would  my 
criticisers  equal  me  in  labor  and  zeal,  I  should 
most  cheerfully  listen  to  their  criticism."  Cam 
eron  showed  no  resentment,  and  Chase  was  careful 
to  cultivate  his  friendship,  and  continued  to  ex 
press  confidence  in  him  long  after  the  country  was 
clamoring  for  the  removal  of  the  Secretary  of  War, 
and  Chase's  friends  were  begging  him  to  take  no 
more  responsibility  for  a  falling  chieftain. 

A  good  reason  for  giving  Chase  an  unusual 
responsibility  was  his  recognized  status  as  the 
representative  of  the  West,  and  as  especially  qual 
ified  to  deal  with  the  Western  border  States. 
Though  Bates  came  from  Missouri,  Chase  through 
his  anti-slavery  correspondents  in  Missouri  and 
Kentucky  was  better  able  than  he  to  gauge  the 
feeling  of  those  two  States,  and  to  influence  their 
destiny.  He  felt  that  he  had  a  right  to  send  to 
Lincoln  a  vigorous  and  sensible  letter,  begging 
him  to  use  force  to  prevent  the  secession  of  Mary 
land  ;  and  in  Virginia  and  West  Virginia  he  exer 
cised  a  semi-military  responsibility.  There  are 


THE   CRITICAL   YEAR   1861  213 

abundant  evidences  that  he  had  special  authority 
in  the  first  months  of  the  war  to  organize  the  West 
ern  troops  and  even  to  suggest  their  destination. 

To  a  West  Virginian  he  writes,  as  by  authority, 
promising  to  accept  and  maintain  such  troops  as 
his  correspondent  may  raise.  He  writes  to  Gen 
eral  Sherman  as  though  the  general  were  subject 
to  his  orders,  promising  commissions  for  his  subor 
dinates,  and  a  supply  of  arms.  To  General  Nel 
son  he  writes  :  "  I  will  go  to  the  War  Department 
at  once  on  the  subject  of  your  wants,  and  do  all  I 
can  to  urge  the  department  to  action  ;  "  and  a  little 
later :  "  As  to  popularity  growing  or  diminishing 
I  care  little.  I  want  to  support  everybody  who 
has  tried  to  do  something."  Toward  McClellan 
he  was  at  the  beginning  much  attracted,  and  he 
assured  the  young  commander  that  his  commis 
sion  of  major-general  was  in  large  degree  due  to 
his  representations  ;  he  even  suggested  a  plan  of 
campaign  for  him,  and  later  wrote  to  him  that 
"  The  army  and  the  treasury  must  stand  or  fall 
together."  In  fact,  until  Stanton  became  Secre 
tary  of  War,  Chase  continued  to  consider  himself, 
and  appears  to  have  been  considered  by  the  Presi 
dent,  the  special  administrator  of  operations  in  the 
West.  Perhaps  he  hoped  to  be  Cameron's  suc 
cessor  ;  at  any  rate,  in  September  he  wrote  to  a 
friend  :  "  Who  is  sufficient  for  the  great  work  of 
the  War  Department  ?  I  see  and  deplore  its  de 
fective  organization,  but  when  I  look  around  and 
ask  myself  who  will  bring  to  this  great  work  the 


214  SALMON   PORTLAND  CHASE 

needed  ability,  or  indeed  more  ability  and  fidelity 
than  its  present  head,  I  confess  myself  perplexed." 

Throughout  the  war  Chase  kept  up  his  great 
interest  in  the  conduct  of  the  army,  and  he  main 
tained  close  correspondence  with  many  of  the  com 
manders,  —  at  first  with  McClellan,  later  with 
Hooker,  Lander,  H.  B.  Carrington,  Mitchell,  Gar- 
field,  McCook,  W.  B.  Smith,  Benham,  and  many 
others.  Western  officers  and  politicians  were 
especially  fond  of  seeking  his  military  influence. 
Doubtless  all  the  members  of  the  cabinet  were 
beset  by  requests  for  commissions  and  military 
favors,  especially  for  paymasterships ;  certainly 
they  poured  in  upon  Chase  by  hundreds.  One 
man  complains  to  him  that  others  are  promoted 
over  his  head  ;  another  informs  him  that  the  gov 
ernor  of  a  Western  State  is  "  drunk  and  incapable 
all  the  time ;  "  another  urges  the  immediate  rais 
ing  of  300,000  men  ;  another  wants  Chase  to  con 
trol  the  contracts  for  gunboats  on  Western  rivers ; 
another  pleads  that  General  Lyon  be  kept  in  Mis 
souri  ;  and  another  advocates  a  new  government  in 
West  Virginia. 

In  other  fields  of  politics  and  administration 
Chase  was  much  less  interested  than  in  the  mili 
tary  department.  Notwithstanding  the  threaten 
ing  aspect  of  foreign  relations,  he  took  but  little 
part  in  external  affairs,  except  to  represent  strongly 
to  Seward  that  he  expected  a  share  of  the  foreign 
patronage  ;  he  figured  out  that  his  State  was  en 
titled  to  33  of  the  269  diplomatic  places.  He 


THE   CRITICAL  YEAR   1861  215 

secured  desirable  berths  for  his  own  intimate 
friends,  Richard  C.  Parsons  and  James  Monroe,  as 
consuls  to  Rio,  and  he  influenced  some  diplomatic 
appointments.  He  even  transmitted  to  the  Presi 
dent  in  October,  1861,  a  curious  suggestion  that 
"  Honorable  Andy  Johnson "  be  sent  over  "  to 
conciliate  public  opinion  in  England."  Through 
out  the  war,  Chase  had  some  special  channels  of 
foreign  information  through  the  letters  of  a  shrewd 
correspondent,  Mr.  Wood,  then  our  minister  to 
Denmark,  and  through  the  impressions  in  foreign 
financial  circles  which  came  to  him  from  time  to 
time  through  New  York  bankers  engaged  in  pla 
cing  American  loans  abroad.  The  one  subject  in 
foreign  diplomacy  in  which  Chase  took  a  marked 
interest  was  the  settlement  of  the  Trent  affair. 
In  a  cabinet  meeting  of  December  26,  1861,  he 
strongly  urged  the  return  of  Mason  and  Slidell, 
on  the  ground  "  that  the  technical  right  was  clearly 
on  the  side  of  the  British  government ; "  and  he 
had  an  honorable  part  in  settling  that  controversy. 
The  significance  of  the  national  finances  was  not 
felt  by  the  secretary  till  December,  1861 ;  but 
during  the  anxious  earlier  months  of  that  year 
Chase  found  time  to  rehabilitate  the  disorganized 
and  almost  bankrupt  Treasury,  to  make  the  neces 
sary  appointments,  to  come  into  relations  with  the 
capitalists  of  the  country,  to  suggest  new  taxes, 
and  to  borrow  the  money  necessary  to  carry  the 
country  through  the  first  period  of  the  war.  In  a 
letter  of  April  6  he  writes:  "Certainly  I  never 


216  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

worked  nearly  so  hard  before  ;  twice  this  week  I 
have  been  at  the  department  till  after  midnight 
from  nine  in  the  morning,  with  an  interval  for 
luncheon  only.  Every  night  except  one  I  have  been 
there  till  after  ten." 

Hard  work  was  necessary,  first  of  all,  in  order 
to  reorganize  the  personnel  of  the  department,  and 
to  reform  the  complicated  and  inadequate  system  of 
accounts.  Since  the  end  of  Robert  J.  Walker's 
term  in  1849,  there  had  been  no  efficient  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  and  the  whole  civil  service  at 
Washington  was  demoralized  by  the  breaking  out 
of  war,  and  the  consequent  resignation  of  many 
Southern  clerks  and  officials ;  while  some  who  re 
mained  in  office  used  their  opportunities  to  send 
information  to  the  enemy.  It  was  necessary  to 
purify  the  Treasury  service ;  and  had  it  been  less 
necessary,  no  man  could  have  altogether  resisted 
the  tremendous  pressure  for  office  which  came  upon 
Secretary  Chase.  The  New  York  "  Tribune  "  of 
March  9  said :  "  Chase  intends  to  insist  that  the 
law  requiring  subordinates  in  his  department  [to] 
be  examined  before  their  appointment  shall  be 
strictly  enforced ;  and  no  applicant  will  be  admit 
ted  to  office  without  entire  qualification.  This  rule 
will  purge  the  public  service  of  drones  and  incompe 
tents."  ^ 

In  making  appointments,  Chase  in  good  faith 
sought  to  apply  the  system  of  pass-examinations, 
which  had  been  set  up  under  the  act  of  1853,  and 
there  were  instances  of  appointees  who  were  not 


THE   CRITICAL   YEAR  18G1  217 

allowed  to  qualify  because  of  failure  to  pass. 
Nevertheless,  large  numbers  of  appointments  were 
made  on  the  personal  judgment  of  the  secretary 
himself ;  and  many  others  on  political  recommen 
dations.  Several  heads  of  bureaus  and  some  clerks 
were  allowed  to  remain  in  service,  and  new  bu 
reaus  were  speedily  organized,  as  the  business  of 
the  department  increased.  Perhaps  the  most  im 
portant  of  the  u  hold-overs  "  was  Mr.  John  J.  Cisco, 
who  at  the  express  request  of  both  Chase  and  Lin 
coln  continued  as  assistant  treasurer  in  New  York 
City  throughout  and  beyond  Chase's  administra 
tion.  Out  of  one  hundred  and  fifteen  heads  of 
custom-houses  ninety  were  lopped ;  and  twelve  of 
the  fifteen  naval  officers,  and  every  appraiser  dis 
appeared.  Nearly  all  the  subordinates  of  such 
officials  went  with  them ;  and  where  there  were  no 
removals,  as  fast  as  commissions  expired  new  men 
were  almost  invariably  appointed. 

The  greatest  prize  within  Chase's  department  was 
the  collectorship  of  the  port  of  New  York,  a  place 
highly  paid,  honorable,  and,  through  its  large  num 
ber  of  employees,  a  means  of  affecting  the  politics 
of  New  York  City  and  State.  To  this  office  Mr. 
Hiram  Barney  was  speedily  appointed.  He  had 
been  one  of  the  small  circle  of  Chase  men  in  New 
York  in  1860  ;  when  the  New  York  delegation  came 
to  the  President  with  a  slate  of  appointments,  Lin 
coln  informed  them  that  he  had  himself  chosen  to 
nominate  Barney.  This  appointment  was  out  of 
the  regular  course,  for  Barney  was  not  in  the  favor 


218  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

of  the  Sewarcl-  Weed  combination,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  was  not  sufficiently  active  as  a  politician 
to  please  Mr.  Chase's  eager  friends ;  hence  in  the 
end  it  proved  satisfactory  to  neither  faction,  and 
gave  occasion  for  many  bitter  attacks  upon  the 
secretary. 

Long  before  the  beginning  of  his  administra 
tion,  Chase's  intimates,  his  acquaintances,  and 
sometimes  his  enemies,  began  to  make  suggestions 
to  him  as  to  appointments.  Among  them  his  far- 
sighted  and  public-spirited  friend,  Joshua  Hanna, 
the  Pittsburg  banker,  desired  him  to  urge  Lincoln 
to  "  inaugurate  a  new  era  in  this  government  by 
selecting  from  among  the  business  men  of  the 
country  those  best  qualified,  who  would  honestly 
and  intelligently  fill  their  several  positions."  The 
editors  of  the  local  party  papers  had  a  different  set 
of  principles,  and  clamored  for  office  of  every  kind 
for  themselves  and  their  friends  ;  and  almost  every 
place  in  New  York  was  hotly  contested  between 
Weed  and  anti-Weed  factions. 

As  soon  as  Chase  was  settled,  members  of  Con 
gress  began  to  insist  that  he  should  make  no  ap 
pointments  in  their  districts  without  their  consent. 
Many  of  his  political  and  personal  friends  fur 
nished  him  with  a  variety  of  amusing  reasons  why 
they  should  have  offices :  one  writes  to  ask  for  "  a 
place  in  Abraham's  bosom,"  and  suggests  the  em 
bassy  to  Chili ;  another  must  be  appointed  because 
he  cannot  make  a  living  in  any  other  way  ;  another, 
because  of  his  great  public  services ;  another,  be- 


THE   CRITICAL  YEAR   18G1  219 

cause  Mr.  Chase  has  in  a  moment  of  undue  warmth 
offered  him  any  office  in  his  gift ;  another  because 
he  is  from  Ohio  ;  another,  because  he  will  work  up 
a  presidential  influence  for  the  secretary  ;  another, 
a  lady,  asks  a  place  for  her  son,  because  his  father 
would  have  been  competent  had  he  lived.  Chase 
got  appointments  in  other  departments  fpr  his  old 
law  partner,  Ball,  for  his  brother,  and  for  other 
kinsmen,  and  he  himself  appointed  many  other  old 
friends ;  but  the  evidence  shows  that  he  made  it  a 
principle  to  recognize  merit  and  efficiency,  and  was 
glad  to  find  it  among  his  own  friends  and  adher 
ents,  all  of  whom  were  of  course  Republicans  or 
strong  war  Democrats. 

The  patronage  of  the  Treasury,  already  large 
and  to  be  increased  by  the  creation  of  new  and 
lucrative  offices,  was  to  an  unusual  degree  left  by 
Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  hands  of  his  secretary.  Occa 
sionally  a  candidate  appeared  at  the  department 
with  such  a  note  from  Mr.  Lincoln  as  the  follow 
ing  :  "  Ought  Mr.  Young  to  be  removed  ?  And  if 
Yea,  ought  Mr.  Adams  to  be  appointed?  Mr. 
Adams  is  magnificently  recommended,  but  the 
great  point  in  his  favor  is  that  Thurlow  Weed  and 
Horace  Greeley  join  in  recommending  him ;  I  sup 
pose  the  like  never  happened  before,  will  never 
happen  again,  so  it  is  now  or  never.  What  think 
you  ?  "  But  the  President  very  rarely  pushed  an 
appointment  hard,  or  disregarded  a  recommenda 
tion  made  by  Chase. 

While  the  new  men  were  fitting  into  their  offices, 


220  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

Chase  began  to  reorganize  the  routine  of  his  de 
partment.  He  was  always  fond  of  arranging  and 
analyzing,  and  showed  an  aptitude  for  distributing 
the  work  of  his  great  office  among  the  various 
bureaus.  Himself  untiring,  he  expected  hard  work 
from  those  about  him.  One  of  the  great  changes 
which  he  introduced  into  government  business  was 
the  employment  of  women  in  the  public  service, 
first  as  counters  of  currency,  later  as  assistants  in 
many  clerical  occupations.  But  though  he  thus 
won  the  distinction  of  opening  up  an  important 
line  of  employment  to  women,  he  very  much  dis 
liked  to  do  business  with  them,  and  hated  to  be 
made  the  object  of  their  personal  demands  for  ap 
pointment  or  other  use  of  his  influence. 

Although  the  Treasury  operations  were  larger 
during  1861  than  ever  before,  the  available  me 
thods  were  those  which  had  always  been  employed 
whenever  the  expenditures  outran  the  resources: 
loans,  treasury  notes,  and  delayed  settlement  of 
accounts.  The  panic  of  1857  so  cut  down  the  in 
come  of  the  United  States  that  it  had  to  borrow  to 
make  up  running  expenses  ;  and  by  November, 
1860,  the  debt  had  risen  to  about  162,000,000. 
Impending  secession  reduced  the  credit  of  the  gov 
ernment,  so  that  when,  toward  the  end  of  1860, 
Secretary  Cobb  advertised  a  loan  of  $10,000,000, 
only  about  $7,000,000  was  taken,  and  on  January 
1,  1861,  in  order  to  meet  interest  payments,  money 
was  borrowed  on  treasury  notes  at  twelve  per  cent. 
The  net  result  of  these  operations  during  the  last 


THE   CRITICAL   YEAR   1861  221 

four  months  of  Buchanan's  administration  was  an 
addition  of  114,000,000  more  of  debt,  with  nothing 
to  show  for  it. 

Chase  was  obliged  to  begin  his  administration  by 
contracting  new  loans.  April  2,  1861,  he  accepted 
tenders  for  18,000,000  of  six  per  cent  bonds, 
ranging  from  par  to  94 ;  but  on  May  21,  after  the 
war  had  actually  begun,  he  was  obliged  to  borrow 
a  further  sum  of  $ 7,000,000  in  six  per  cents,  at 
rates  from  93  to  85,  besides  issuing  new  treasury 
notes  for  present  needs. 

The  meeting  of  Congress  in  July,  1861,  gave  the 
secretary  his  first  opportunity  to  suggest  a  financial 
plan  for  the  government,  and  to  discover  how  much 
criticism  and  change  he  must  endure  from  Con 
gress  before  any  efficient  legislation  could  be  had. 
At  this  time  he  desired  authority  to  contract  for  only 
such  loans  as  the  country  might  speedily  expect  to 
extinguish.  "  The  idea  of  perpetual  debt,"  said 
he,  "  is  not  of  American  nativity  and  should  not 
be  naturalized."  He  therefore  recommended  such 
increased  taxation  as  would  raise  the  ordinary  an 
nual  revenue  of  the  government  from  $ 50,000,000 
to  about  180,000,000,  including  a  direct  tax  of 
820,000,000,  to  be  apportioned  among  the  States, 
and  an  income  tax  of  three  per  cent.  He  favored 
also  an  extensive  measure  of  confiscation.  All 
these  measures  were  enacted  by  Congress ;  but 
down  to  December,  1861,  not  more  than  $2,000,000 
was  actually  paid  into  the  Treasury  from  direct 
taxation,  and  nothing  from  the  income  tax. 


222  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

The  most  important  financial  measures  during 
the  first  year  were  arrangements  for  new  loans,  and 
the  actual  borrowing  of  money  —  both  matters  in 
which  the  brief  legislation  of  Congress  was  very  sig 
nificant,  for  there  was  laid  the  foundation  for  large 
issues  of  bonds,  of  interest-bearing  notes,  and  of 
circulating  notes.  During  the  short  summer  ses 
sion,  Chase  was  authorized  to  borrow  an  additional 
$250, 000, 000  in  any  or  all  the  three  forms,  the  non- 
interest-bearing  notes  not  to  exceed  $ 50,000,000 ; 
and  it  was  upon  the  basis  of  this  authority  that 
the  funds  necessary  for  the  prosecution  of  the  war 
during  the  second  half  of  1861  were  obtained. 

One  of  the  first  steps  taken  by  the  new  secretary 
was  to  seek  the  acquaintance  of  the  financiers  in 
Philadelphia,  Boston,  and  especially  New  York. 
His  retention  of  Mr.  Cisco  as  local  treasurer  helped 
him  to  win  the  confidence  of  bankers ;  and  several 
of  the  metropolitan  capitalists  and  bank  presidents 
were  Chase's  personal  friends,  especially  George 
Opdyke,  later  mayor  of  the  city.  Armed  with  his 
new  authority  from  Congress,  in  July  Chase  had  a 
conference  with  the  heads  of  the  banks  in  the  three 
great  financial  centres,  and  arranged  for  the  placing 
of  $150,000,000  of  three-year  treasury  notes,  bear 
ing  interest  of  seven  and  three-tenths  per  cent. 
Chase  has  left  an  account  of  the  language  in  which 
he  stated  to  the  bankers  the  only  alternative  for  this 
loan  :  "I  was  obliged  to  be  very  firm,  and  to  say, 
4  Gentlemen,  I  am  sure  you  wish  to  do  all  you  can. 
I  hope  you  will  find  that  you  can  take  the  loans 


THE  CRITICAL  YEAR   1861  223 

required  on  terms  which  can  be  admitted.  If  not, 
1  must  go  back  to  Washington  and  issue  notes  for 
circulation  ;  for,  gentlemen,  the  war  must  go  OD 
until  this  rebellion  is  put  down,  if  we  have  to  put 
out  paper  until  it  takes  $1000  to  buy  a  breakfast.' ' 
This  suggestion  of  government  notes  in  denomina 
tions  and  on  terms  which  would  cause  them  to  cir 
culate,  was  a  threat  of  much  import  to  the  state 
banks ;  but  without  it  they  stood  ready  cheerfully 
to  take  the  first  installment  of  $50,000,000  in  seven 
and  three-tenths  per  cent  treasury  notes. 

The  money  was  spent  almost  faster  than  it  was 
received,  and  a  few  weeks  later  Chase  arranged 
for  a  second  call  of  150,000,000  on  the  same  terms. 
But  investors  showed  less  confidence  than  the 
banks,  and  when  a  third  call  was  made  for  $50,- 
000,000,  the  bankers  could  no  longer  advance  upon 
the  "seven-thirty"  notes  at  par,  and  Mr.  Chase 
reluctantly  issued  $50,000,000  in  six  per  cent 
bonds  at  about  92.  A  part  of  his  loan  system  had 
been  the  appointment  of  one  hundred  and  forty- 
eight  agents  for  the  placing  of  the  loan  ;  of  these, 
only  one,  Jay  Cooke  of  Philadelphia,  distinguished 
himself  by  his  success  in  distributing  the  treasury 
notes.  Though  the  system  of  agents  was  for  the 
time  abandoned,  his  efficiency  was  not  forgotten, 
and  he  later  became  Chase's  special  loan  dis 
tributor. 

Thus  far,  during  the  nine  months  of  his  stay  in 
the  Treasury,  Chase  had  had  little  opportunity  to 
show  his  qualities  either  as  a  great  leader  in  the 


224  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

Civil  War  or  as  an  originator  of  schemes  for 
finance.  His  military  activity  in  the  East  was 
much  diminished  when  McClellan  was  appointed 
to  the  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  and 
began  his  system  of  military  organization.  After 
some  attempts  to  form  a  friendship  with  the  gen 
eral,  Chase  found  that  he  was  little  consulted  on 
the  affairs  of  the  Eastern  army.  The  question  of 
slavery,  in  which  Chase  was  by  his  history  and  his 
convictions  a  leader,  was  as  yet  kept  in  the  back 
ground,  and  national  finance  thus  far  had  consisted 
in  organizing  the  machinery  of  the  Treasury,  in 
taking  up  the  small  amount  of  available  capital  at 
high  rates  of  interest  or  at  a  humiliating  discount, 
and  in  issuing  a  few  millions  of  so-called  "  demand 
notes,"  which  circulated  as  currency,  and  were 
receivable  for  debts  to  the  government.  Had  the 
war  ended  early  in  1862,  as  was  hoped,  Chase 
would  never  have  had  an  opportunity  to  show 
his  powers  as  a  financier,  or  to  urge  his  banking 
scheme.  So  long  as  specie  payments  continued 
he  had  no  harder  task  than  that  of  several  secre 
taries  of  the  Treasury  before  him. 

During  1861  began  one  of  the  peculiar  functions 
of  the  Treasury  which,  though  it  went  on  through 
out  the  war,  may  be  conveniently  discussed  here. 
It  has  already  been  noted  that  Mr.  Chase  looked 
forward  to  a  large  income  from  the  confiscation  of 
the  property  of  rebels :  this  measure  seemed  an  easy 
mode  of  combining  revenue  with  punishment.  By 
the  first  confiscation  act,  August  6,  1861,  the  Pre- 


THE   CRITICAL  YEAR  1861  225 

sident  was  authorized  to  seize  any  property  used 
in  promoting  insurrection ;  but  it  proved  difficult 
to  get  legal  proof  against  such  property,  and  hence 
the  act,  in  its  practical  application,  had  to  do  prin 
cipally  with  slaves.  A  second  act  of  July  17,  1862, 
authorized  the  taking  of  property  belonging  to 
civil  and  military  officers  of  the  Confederacy,  or  to 
any  persons  who  had  given  aid  and  comfort  to  the 
rebellion.  In  both  cases  some  kind  of  legal  pro 
ceeding  was  necessary  for  condemnation ;  but  as 
Federal  lines  were  extended,  plantations,  buildings, 
live  stock,  and  especially  cotton,  were  often  found 
without  a  visible  owner  ;  and  since  this  property 
was  expected  to  come  into  the  Treasury,  it  fell 
within  the  jurisdiction  of  Secretary  Chase.  By 
a  series  of  orders,  approved  by  the  President,  he 
made  provision  for  the  collection,  sale,  and  record 
of  such  property ;  and  in  order  to  manage  this 
immense  business  he  was  authorized  to  appoint  a 
special  body  of  Treasury  agents,  who  followed 
close  behind  the  armies,  and  sometimes  went  ahead 
of  them. 

It  was  also  the  function  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  to  make  and  enforce  regulations  for  ex 
ternal  commerce,  so  as  to  prevent  goods  sent  out 
of  the  United  States  from  finding  their  way  eventu 
ally  to  the  enemy ;  and  this  important  power 
was  extended  to  the  control  of  trade  on  the  land 
border.  Movements  of  trade  which  had  been  es 
tablished  half  a  century  were  interrupted  by  the 
war,  and  the  traffic  from  Southern  to  Northern 


226  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

Atlantic  ports  by  sea  was  resolutely  and  completely 
suppressed ;  but  along  the  whole  military  land 
frontier  from  the  James  River  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Mississippi,  there  was  an  unceasing  effort  to  carry 
on  traffic  as  if  there  were  no  war.  On  one  side,  the 
Northwestern  States  were  cut  off  from  their  valu 
able  provision  trade  to  the  South  ;  on  the  other 
side,  cotton  accumulated  behind  the  Confederate 
lines  without  any  home  market.  Even  within  the 
Union  lines  the  condition  of  the  border  States  was 
desperate,  for  sympathizers  with  the  South  were  so 
intermixed  with  loyal  men,  and  the  facilities  for 
forbidden  trade  across  the  broken  country  which 
constituted  the  military  frontier  were  so  abundant, 
that  it  became  necessary  to  regulate,  and  in  some 
cases  almost  to  cut  off,  the  commerce  of  whole 
communities.  Hence  a  great  pressure  was  put 
upon  the  secretary  to  grant  permits  to  furnish 
supplies  for  particular  places  and  regions ;  and 
rigorously  limited  permissions  were  given  to  fur 
nish  15000  a  month  in  drugs  to  such  a  city,  and 
$10,000  in  dry  goods  and  groceries  to  such  another. 
By  a  series  of  Treasury  regulations  in  May  and 
June,  1861,  Chase  directed  the  officials  of  his  de 
partment  to  refuse  clearances  to  places  within  the 
hostile  lines  ;  but  under  the  act  of  July  13,  1861, 
the  President  was  authorized  to  license  commercial 
intercourse  with  parts  of  the  seceded  States,  and 
the  regulation  of  this  trade  was  turned  over  to  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  When  he  came  to 
apply  the  principle  in  Kentucky  and  Missouri, 


THE  CRITICAL  YEAR  1861  227 

Chase  laid  the  foundation  of  a  most  bitter  hostility 
to  himself ;  for  the  Ohio  River  trade  to  all  places 
on  the  south  side  of  the  stream  was  for  some  time 
prohibited,  and  the  commerce  of  Louisville  was 
checked ;  while  by  cutting  off  the  traffic  down  the 
Mississippi  from  St.  Louis,  the  opposition  of  the 
business  men  of  that  city  was  roused.  In  New 
Orleans,  under  General  Butler's  rule,  a  brisk  traffic 
began  across  the  Gulf  to  the  Confederacy,  salt 
going  in  and  cotton  coming  out ;  and  agents  were 
despatched  to  bring  down  cotton  from  the  tribu 
taries  of  the  Mississippi. 

Suck  a  system  of  agents,  acting  so  far  from 
Washington  and  in  the  midst  of  war,  was  certain 
to  lead  to  abuses ;  for  to  the  special  agents  of  the 
Treasury  had  been  given  an  authority  independent 
of  the  military  commanders,  and  capable  of  gross 
misuse.  The  confidential  reports  of  several  of 
Chase's  agents  are  still  in  existence,  and  they  show 
his  own  earnest  desire  that  the  business  should  be 
done  honestly,  and  at  the  same  time  the  impossi 
bility  of  carrying  it  on  at  such  a  distance  without 
fraud  and  corruption. 

The  most  profitable  trade  was  in  cotton  and 
sugar.  Cotton  inside  the  Confederate  lines  was 
worth  not  more  than  ten  cents  in  specie,  but  once 
on  its  way  North  or  abroad  it  was  worth  seventy 
cents  and  upward.  The  temptation  was  too  strong 
to  be  resisted.  George  S.  Denison,  collector  of  the 
revenue,  Chase's  confidential  and  upright  repre 
sentative  in  New  Orleans,  wrote  him  letter  after 


228  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

letter  about  the  trade  across  the  border,  which  was 
going  on  under  his  own  eyes,  but  which  he  could 
not  check  because  it  was  authorized  by  the  general 
in  command.  General  Butler  professed  indigna 
tion,  and  promised  amendment  ;  but  Mr.  Denison 
reported  —  what  everybody  in  New  Orleans  sus 
pected  —  that  the  brother  of  the  general  was  pro 
fiting  by  this  unwarrantable  trade,  and  that  the 
general  winked  at  it.  A  statute  of  March,  1863, 
attempted  to  correct  these  abuses  by  affixing  a  pen 
alty  to  the  reception  of  anything  which  was  brought 
out  of  the  Confederacy  except  by  the  authorized 
agents  of  the  Treasury ;  and  Chase  followed  up  the 
statute  by  renewed  regulations,  approved  from  time 
to  time  by  the  President.  In  1863  a  comprehen 
sive  plan  was  drawn  up  by  which  the  country  was 
divided  into  special  agencies  with  a  hierarchy  of 
agents.  By  the  removal  of  persons  proved  to  be 
unsound,  Chase  tried  to  check  the  corruption  of  the 
agents,  and  in  September,  1863,  after  the  capture 
of  Vicksburg,  he  successfully  resisted  a  committee 
from  St.  Louis  backed  by  Attorney-General  Bates, 
which  demanded  that  the  Mississippi  be  opened  to 
trade  throughout  its  length. 

The  administration  of  the  Treasury  during  the 
war  has  no  more  unsavory  side  than  the  scramble 
for  permits  and  the  collusion  of  military  officers  in 
getting  out  property  from  the  enemy's  lines;  yet 
for  no  object  did  the  secretary  more  honestly  bestir 
himself  than  to  regulate  the  trade.  The  circum 
stances  were  too  much  for  him,  as  they  were  for 


THE  CRITICAL  YEAR  1861  229 

the  most  upright  commanders  in  the  field.  A  few 
days  before  Chase's  resignation  in  1864,  General 
Sickles  wrote  :  "  The  real  truth  is  that  it  has  come 
almost  to  a  direct  trade  with  the  enemy.  In  Ken 
tucky,  Tennessee,  and  Mississippi  and  Arkansas 
immense  quantities  of  merchandise  go  through  our 
lines,  often  in  unbroken  packages."  Though  the 
Treasury  was  defeated  in  its  effort  to  keep  the 
trade  in  proper  channels,  it  would  be  unjust  to 
hold  the  secretary  culpable.  Chase  could  and  did 
remove  delinquent  agents  ;  but  he  could  not  guar 
antee  that  their  successors  would  be  proof  against 
the  temptations  of  their  unrivaled  opportunities. 

In  later  chapters  the  attempt  will  be  made  to 
describe  Chase's  financial  policy.  The  fiscal  and 
financial  history  of  the  Civil  War  is  yet  to  be  writ 
ten  ;  but  it  is  possible  to  show  the  plans,  hopes,  and 
fears  of  the  secretary,  to  bring  out  the  personal 
side  of  his  administration,  to  discuss  his  problems. 
Throughout  the  financial  chapters  the  reader  will 
find  useful  the  brief  financial  tables,  printed  as  an 
appendix  to  this  book. 


CHAPTER  IX 

TAXATION,   LOANS,   AND  LEGAL   TENDERS,    1862-1863 

WITH  the  meeting  of  Congress  in  December, 
1861,  there  came  upon  Chase  a  new  set  of  anxieties, 
both  financial  and  political.  Upon  him  lay  the 
responsibility  of  suggesting  a  financial  system 
which  should  keep  up  the  government's  credit  on 
$267,000,000  of  outstanding  loans  and  notes ;  which 
should  provide  at  once  for  a  deficit,  already  in 
curred,  of  1143,000,000 ;  and  which  should  make 
possible  the  prosecution  of  the  war  upon  the  scale 
which  it  now  assumed.  It  was  his  duty  also  to  con 
vince  the  capitalists  of  the  country  that  his  schemes 
would  work  ;  and  —  perhaps  more  difficult  still  — 
he  must  persuade  Congress  of  his  superior  wisdom. 

His  first  annual  report  appeared  December  9 ; 
but  before  it  could  produce  any  effect,  his  hand  had 
been  forced  by  a  crisis  in  the  currency.  The  three 
successive  interest-bearing  loans  of  $50,000,000 
each  had  drawn  heavily  on  the  specie  reserves  of 
the  country  ;  and  at  the  same  time,  $27,000,000 
of  treasury  notes  were  in  circulation  as  a  currency, 
in  competition  with  state  bank  notes.  Feeling 
the  drain  upon  their  gold,  the  banks  urged  the  gov 
ernment  to  receive  their  bank  notes  for  bonds,  a 


TAXATION,  LOANS,  AND  LEGAL  TENDERS    231 

proposition  which  meant  that  the  state  bank  issues 
were  to  be  bolstered  up  by  government  credit.  To 
this  suggestion  Chase  replied  with  firmness :  "  If 

OO  A 

you  can  lend  me  all  the  coin  required  or  show  me 
where  I  can  borrow  it  elsewhere  at  fair  rates,  I  will 
withdraw  every  note  already  issued,  and  pledge  my 
self  never  to  issue  another ;  but  if  you  cannot,  you 
must  let  me  stick  to  United  States  notes,  and  in 
crease  the  issue  of  them  just  as  far  as  the  deficiency 
of  coin  may  require."  The  real  difficulty  was  not 
scarcity  of  specie,  but  a  want  of  public  confidence 
in  the  success  of  the  war,  which  affected  both  the 
government  notes  and  the  new  securities  still  held 
in  large  quantities  by  the  banks. 

In  1812,  in  1837,  in  1839,  and  in  1857,  the 
banks  had  all  refused  to  redeem  their  own  notes  in 
specie,  and  it  was  plain  that  they  were  likely  to 
suspend  specie  payment  again.  It  was  a  painful 
suggestion  to  Chase,  for  he  had  insisted  that  no 
suspension  would  be  necessary ;  but  he  had  no 
power  to  control  public  confidence,  and  had  made 
no  preparations  for  such  a  crisis.  On  December  30 
all  the  banks  by  general  agreement  suspended  pay 
ment  of  their  demand  notes,  and  the  government 
followed,  with  the  result  that  after  a  few  days  a 
small  premium  was  exacted  for  specie,  gold  became 
a  commodity,  and  the  government  issues  of  notes 
and  bonds  began  to  decline  in  value. 

Looking  backward  over  the  experience  of  nearly 
forty  years,  it  is  easy  to  criticise  the  banks,  the 
country,  and  the  secretary  for  this  suspension. 


232  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

Ought  not  resolution,  bold  taxation,  or  loans  at  high 
interest  to  have  held  the  country  up  to  the  specie 
standard  ?  So  far  as  the  previous  experience  of 
the  United  States  shows,  a  suspension  was  inevi 
table,  and  would  have  come  about  had  there  been 
no  government  circulating  notes.  But  considering 
the  special  difficulties  of  the  time,  none  but  an 
extraordinary  financier,  a  Hamilton,  could  have 
prevented  this  misfortune.  The  banks  of  issue 
had  state  charters,  and  were  subject  to  no  control 
and  no  penalties  from  the  general  government  if 
they  failed  to  redeem  their  notes.  When  the 
banks  gave  up  specie  for  Chase's  seven-thirty  notes, 
they  expressed  their  own  confidence  that  the  gov 
ernment  would  punctually  pay  interest  and  princi 
pal  ;  but  so  far  as  they  held  those  notes,  and  had 
not  sold  them  to  investors,  they  were  basing  their 
own  solvency  on  the  national  confidence  that  the 
government  would  speedily  break  down  the  South 
ern  Confederacy ;  and  neither  banks  nor  investors 
were  keyed  up  to  the  enormous  expenditures  which 
liad  begun  to  appear  essential. 

The  government  notes  affected  the  question  of 
suspension  indirectly,  because  they  showed  that 
borrowing  had  already  begun  to  lag,  and  because 
the  United  States  could  not  keep  them  afloat  as  a 
special  gold-value  currency ;  but  the  real  reason 
for  the  suspension  of  specie  payments  was  that  no 
body  could  see  where  the  specie  was  coming  from 
to  keep  up  the  reserves,  in  view  of  the  probable 
demands  by  the  federal  government.  Vigorous 


TAXATION,  LOANS,  AND  LEGAL  TENDERS    233 

and  immediate  taxation  would  have  checked  the 
fall  of  paper  money,  but  it  could  not  have  pro 
vided  for  the  expenses  of  1862 ;  and  both  pri 
vate  and  public  finance  were  disorganized  for  a 
time  by  the  conditions  of  a  civil  war.  Business 
was  disconcerted  by  loss  of  foreign  trade,  by  the 
closing  of  the  Southern  market,  and  by  the  can 
cellation  of  most  of  the  debts  due  from  Southern 
merchants. 

As  for  the  Treasury,  in  1861  the  administration 
had  to  feel  its  way  ;  it  had  not  foreseen  the  neces 
sary  changes  in  its  financial  system,  because  it  had 
not  foreseen  a  long  war.  As  yet  there  was  no 
powerful  syndicate  of  American  money  lenders  to 
absorb  loans  or  sell  abroad ;  no  machinery  for 
placing  popular  loans ;  no  experience  of  the  capa 
city  of  the  people  for  bearing  taxation ;  no  know 
ledge  of  the  terrible  war  expenses  which  ate  up 
the  revenue  long  before  it  was  available ;  no  suffi 
cient  understanding  between  secretary  and  Con 
gress.  The  only  thing  of  which  Chase  could  feel 
reasonable  certainty  in  December,  1861,  was  that 
the  country  would  carry  on  the  war  through  the 
next  campaign ;  the  task  of  straightening  out  the 
national  forces  and  causing  them  to  run  parallel 
was  the  work  of  many  months  to  follow. 

Chase's  position  would  have  been  stronger  had 
the  beginnings  of  a  consistent  financial  system  been 
presented  to  the  July  session  of  Congress  ;  but  the 
finance  of  1861  was  practically  a  series  of  make 
shifts.  First,  there  were  the  scanty  proceeds  of 


234  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

peace  taxes ;  then  loans,  till  they  broke  the  mar 
ket  ;  then  treasury  notes,  to  tide  over  a  few  months. 
The  crude  devices  of  direct  tax,  of  confiscation  acts, 
and  of  income  tax  had  as  yet  produced  little  ;  and 
when  in  December,  1861,  the  secretary  was  ready 
with  a  comprehensive  scheme  — taxes,  loans,  notes, 
and  banks  —  his  plans  were  pushed  aside  by  Con 
gress,  till  the  mischief  of  the  suspension  of  specie 
payments  had  been  done,  and  the  Treasury  was 
empty ;  and  then  began  a  hurried  course  of  legis 
lation  in  which  the  plans  of  the  secretary  were 
treated  with  little  respect. 

It  was  not  in  Chase's  nature  to  be  persuasive ; 
in  all  his  public  life  his  successes  were  those  of  the 
downright  man,  convincing  without  pleasing.  Him 
self  a  most  capable  legislator  when  in  the  Senate, 
he  had  little  patience  with  slow  intellects,  and  less 
of  that  urbane  yielding  of  non-essentials  which  se 
cures  the  adoption  of  the  larger  matters  of  principle. 
The  Congress  of  1861-63  was  at  best  a  body  hard 
to  conciliate  ;  the  majority  was  made  up  of  ele 
ments  suspicious  of  each  other,  and  the  eventual 
crystallization  was  around  very  aggressive  men, 
like  Wade  and  Thaddeus  Stevens ;  moreover,  the 
temper  of  Congress  shortly  became  so  radical  that, 
even  on  such  a  question  as  slavery,  men  like  Chase 
were  found  among  the  conservatives.  The  lack  of 
harmony  between  appropriations  and  "ways  and 
means,"  which  had  been  of  small  consequence  be 
fore  1861,  became  dangerous  during  the  war ;  for 
to  vote  supplies  seemed  a  patriotic  duty,  to  be  per- 


TAXATION,  LOANS,  AND  LEGAL  TENDERS    235 

formed  instantly  and  without  too  much  discussion, 
while  the  raising  of  money  required  long  debates, 
and  affected  a  member's  popularity  in  his  own  dis 
trict. 

To  deal  with  Congress  Chase  needed  lieutenants, 
and  he  never  had  them.  Senator  Fessenden  of 
Maine  was  sincerely  interested  in  financial  ques 
tions,  and  was  as  helpful  as  any  member  of  Con 
gress  ;  but  Chase  had  few  personal  friends  in  either 
house  and  fewer  spokesmen.  He  had  to  keep  in 
relations  with  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means 
of  the  House,  and  the  Finance  Committee  of  the 
Senate  ;  and  he  argued  before  them,  button-holed 
members,  wrote  letters,  placated  them  with  minor 
appointments,  and  brought  pressure  to  bear  from 
constituents  and  newspapers  ;  but  he  understood 
not  the  arts  of  lobbying,  and  he  never  could  bring 
Congress  to  accept  his  financial  scheme  in  an  en 
tirety,  or  any  part  of  it  without  great  modification 
of  details. 

So  far  as  expenditures  went,  Chase  never  had 
any  control  over  them,  and  yet  he  was  held  respon 
sible  for  at  least  the  suggestions  of  means  to  meet 
them.  An  example  or  two  will  show  how  far  out 
of  the  way  his  estimates  sometimes  were.  In  July, 
1861,  it  seemed  to  him  safe  to  predict  that  the 
expenditures  for  the  fiscal  year  1861-62  would  be 
1318,000,000;  but  the  revised  estimates  in  De 
cember  were  1543,000,000,  and  the  actual  sum 
eventually  shown  to  have  been  expended  was  $475,- 
000,000,  For  the  year  1862-63  the  secretary 


236  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

estimated  1475,000,000,  and  in  the  end  paid  out 
$715,000,000.  Both  the  committee  system  and  the 
exigencies  of  the  war  made  it  impossible  for  Chase 
to  impress  upon  Congress  a  conviction  that  he  had 
a  firm  grasp  of  the  problems  of  national  finance. 

All  the  elements  of  Chase's  whole  system  of 
finance  are  to  be  found  in  his  careful  report  of 
December,  1861.  In  expenditure  he  urged  an 
economy  which  he  was  never  able  to  secure.  For 
receipts  he  recognized  five  possible  sources  :  taxa 
tion,  time  loans,  confiscation  of  property  of  the 
insurgents,  treasury  notes  to  be  issued  for  brief 
periods  on  interest,  and  demand  notes  circulating 
as  currency  ;  out  of  these  sources  he  meant  soon 
to  eliminate  the  government  notes  of  both  kinds, 
except  for  temporary  uses ;  and  he  intended  to  rely 
on  taxation,  long  loans,  and  confiscation.  The  ques 
tions  which  most  exercised  his  mind  were  :  in  what 
proportion  to  use  loans  and  taxes,  and  how  to  find 
a  market  for  his  loans  ?  The  force  of  circum 
stances,  however,  speedily  forced  upon  him  as  his 
main  resources  short  term  loans  bearing  high  in 
terest  ;  and  treasury  notes,  circulating  as  currency, 
irredeemable,  and  a  legal  tender. 

At  the  moment,  the  most  serious  problem  seemed 
to  be  whether  the  Treasury  should  rely  on  heavy 
taxation  to  furnish  a  considerable  part  of  its  rev 
enues,  to  create  confidence  in  the  payment  of  inter 
est,  and  to  form  the  basis  of  a  sinking  fund  for 
the  bonds.  Chase  did  not  in  either  1861  or  1862 
urge  high  taxation,  and  in  December,  1863,  he  very 


TAXATION,  LOANS,  AND  LEGAL  TENDERS  237 

distinctly  stated  his  reasons.  "  I  can  see  clearly 
that  we  can  go  no  further  without  heavy  taxation  ; 
and  he  has  read  history  to  little  purpose  wlio  does 
not  know  that  heavy  taxes  will  excite  discontent." 

The  experience  of  1864  and  1865  proved  that  the 
country  could  pay  enormous  taxes  ;  hence  it  is  a 
serious  question  whether  Chase  ought  not  to  have 
made  taxation  the  basis  of  his  whole  scheme.  It 
must  not  be  forgotten  how  unused  people  were 
to  any  national  taxes  except  indirect  customs, 
and  how  light  even  state  and  local  taxation  had 
been  for  many  years.  From  1837  to  1861  the  na 
tional  revenue  was  practically  derived  from  import 
duties,  except  a  few  millions  from  public  lands. 
The  excise  had  twice  been  laid,  but  the  second  ex 
cise  expired  in  1817,  and  it  had  always  been  a  very 
unpopular  impost.  No  direct  tax  had  been  levied 
since  the  War  of  1812,  and  it  was  a  device  which 
bore  hardest  on  the  poorest  communities.  Chase's 
political  instincts  were  against  high  protective  du 
ties,  and  Congress  never  knew  how  to  force  up  the 
tariff  to  a  basis  which  would  be  productive  and  yet 
not  impair  its  revenue  capacity.  The  strongest 
reason  for  holding  off  from  war  taxation  in  1861 
was  the  expectation  that  the  war  would  be  over 
in  twelve  months ;  Chase  hesitated,  and  Lincoln 
hesitated  with  him,  to  lay  a  permanent  war  tax, 
and  both  deliberately  faced  the  prospect  of  going 
through  the  calendar  year  1862  chiefly  on  loans 
and  on  the  expected  proceeds  of  confiscations. 

In  his  report  Chase  expressly  disclaimed  a  pur- 


238  SALMON   PORTLAND  CHASE 

pose  of  depending  on  government  circulating 
notes.  He  expected  to  borrow,  but  on  obligations 
running  many  years,  and  lie  brought  forward  in 
its  first  form  his  great  project  for  a  system  of  na 
tional  bank  corporations,  which  should  give  the 
country  a  stable  currency  and  at  the  same  time 
become  large  lenders  to  the  government.  To  his 
mind  the  new  banks  were  to  be  the  keystone  of 
his  financial  arch ;  they  were  to  interest  the  finan 
ciers  in  the  success  of  the  government,  to  take 
away  the  competition  between  state  bank  notes 
and  government  issues,  to  absorb  and  sell  the  gov 
ernment  securities,  and  to  replace  the  temporary 
treasury  notes. 

As  soon  as  the  recommendations  of  the  secre 
tary  were  sent  to  Congress  it  became  evident  that 
that  body  was  little  disposed  to  follow  his  lead. 
The  customs  duties  had  produced  $64,000,000  in 
1856-57,  but  only  $40,000,000  in  1860-61.  The 
Merrill  tariff  took  effect  April  1,  1861 ;  but  as  it 
could  be  applied  only  to  the  loyal  States,  on  Chase's 
recommendation  a  special  act  of  August  5  had 
imposed  revenue  duties  on  tea,  coffee,  sugar,  and 
molasses  ;  and  on  December  24,  also  on  Chase's 
suggestion,  Congress  further  raised  those  rates  so 
as  to  add  at  once  to  the  revenue.  As  new  sources 
of  revenue,  Chase  proposed  direct,  income,  and  in 
ternal  taxes  to  the  amount  of  $50,000,000  a  year, 
which,  with  the  increased  customs,  would  make  an 
income  of  $90,000,000. 

Although   he  apologized  for  asking  such  large 


TAXATION,  LOANS,  AND  LEGAL  TENDERS    239 

sums,  Congress  parted  from  him  at  this  critical 
moment,  and  under  the  leadership  of  Thaddeus 
Stevens  the  House  directed  the  Committee  on 
Ways  and  Means  to  lay  new  taxes  which  should 
produce  $150,000,000.  But  if  Chase  asked  less 
than  the  country  was  willing  to  give,  at  least  he 
wanted  speedy  action  ;  and  Congress  let  six  months 
slip  away  before  the  comprehensive  internal  revenue 
act  of  July  1,  1862,  was  passed.  In  this  statute  a 
large  number  of  articles,  processes,  and  evidences 
of  wealth  were  included ;  and  a  necessary  part  of 
the  scheme  was  a  new  tariff,  by  which  additional 
duties  were  placed  on  imported  goods,  to  corre 
spond  with  the  new  burdens  placed  on  American 
manufactures.  This  act  required  a  wholly  new 
and  very  elaborate  machinery,  which  could  not  be 
improvised.  Hence  the  net  result  of  the  disregard 
of  the  secretary's  suggestion  was  that  during  the 
fiscal  year  1861-62  he  had  no  income  from  new 
taxation  except  driblets  from  the  direct  tax  to  the 
amount  of  about  12,000,000  ;  and  in  1862-63  he 
got  less  than  $40,000,000  from  new  taxes,  while 
the  tariff  receipts  for  that  year  were  hardly  greater 
than  for  1856.  Chase's  own  modest  plan  would 
have  yielded  from  $60,000,000  to  $70,000,000  a 
year  during  the  same  period,  with  an  immediate 
good  effect  on  the  public  credit. 

The  full  influence  of  the  legislation  of  1862  was 
not  felt  till  the  fiscal  year  1863-64,  when  customs 
and  internal  revenue  raised  the  income  at  last  to 
more  than  the  $200,000,000  which  Chase  had  ex- 


240  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

pected  in  1862,  and  with  the  aid  of  130,000,000  of 
confiscations  the  revenue  ran  up  to  §260,000,000. 
In  1864-65,  after  Chase's  retirement,  the  taxes  rose 
to  $300,000,000,  and  in  1865-66  to  $490,000,000 ; 
and  the  country  from  which  Chase  hesitated  to  ask 
$90,000,000  in  December,  1861,  five  years  later 
furnished  $570,000,000  to  the  federal  treasury, 
besides  tremendous  sacrifices  of  men  and  money. 

It  would  not  be  fair  either  to  the  secretary  or  to 
Congress  to  think  the  conditions  of  1866  like  those 
of  1861.  Flush  times,  sudden  revival  of  business, 
resumption  of  immigration,  national  self-confidence, 
the  restoration  of  the  South,  had  by  that  time 
taken  the  place  of  distress  and  forebodings.  Chase 
might  have  struck  a  higher  note  in  his  policy  of 
taxation,  and  every  dollar  raised  in  1862  would 
have  saved  three  dollars  in  1864 ;  but  he  had  an 
intelligent  plan  of  successive  increases  of  taxation, 
which  would  have  accustomed  the  country  to  the 
machinery  of  collection,  while  the  congressional 
system  of  taxes  was  slow  at  a  critical  time,  and  in 
the  end  bore  harder  than  was  intended. 

In  all  the  previous  crises  in  the  finances  of  the 
United  States,  — 1776,  1794,  1812,  1837,  1842, 
1857,  —  taxation  had  been  both  inadequate  and 
slow ;  and  three  other  means  of  raising  money  had 
been  employed,  —  temporary  loans,  funded  loans, 
and  a  form  of  paper  currency.  The  easiest  method 
was  to  issue  the  so-called  "  treasury  notes,"  usually 
in  large  denominations  and  bearing  interest.  They 
were  used  to  satisfy  for  the  time  being  the  claims 


TAXATION,  LOANS,  AND  LEGAL  TENDERS    241 

of  contractors,  and  also  to  attract  idle  capital, 
since  they  had  commonly  but  a  few  months  to  run, 
and  were  as  sound  as  any  security  in  the  country. 
They  were  almost  always  treated  as  an  investment, 
and  did  not  circulate  except  among  banks  and  capi 
talists. 

Chase  found  outstanding  when  he  came  into 
office  more  than  $10,000,000  in  one-year  notes; 
and  he  also  found  authority,  by  an  act  of  March  2, 
1861,  to  issue  more  treasury  notes ;  and  before  De 
cember  1, 1861,  he  had  put  out  $22,000,000  of  two- 
year  notes,  besides  a  large  amount  of  very  short- 
term  notes,  which  were  redeemed  as  they  fell  due. 
Under  the  discretion  given  him  by  the  statutes,  he 
revived  a  form  of  note  devised  in  the  War  of 
1812,  —  a  7-j^-  per  cent  three-year  "bond,"  as  he 
called  it,  issued  in  denominations  of  $50  and  up 
wards.  The  rate  of  interest  was  high  ;  it  was  easy 
to  calculate,  and  it  was  hoped  that  the  people 
would  hoard  the  notes  :  as  a  matter  of  fact  they 
were  taken  chiefly  by  banks  and  large  investors. 
In  July,  1865,  $810,000,000  of  these  notes  were 
outstanding,  and  they  were  not  all  extinguished 
till  1870. 

Several  other  forms  of  temporary  obligations 
were  worked  out  by  the  ingenious  secretary :  such 
were  the  ordinary  one-year  and  two-year  notes  at 
five  per  cent  and  six  per  cent  interest ;  "  certifi 
cates  of  indebtedness,"  bearing  six  per  cent  and 
running  a  year;  and  "temporary  loans,"  payable 
on  ten  days'  notice,  with  four  per  cent,  five  per 


242  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

cent,  or  six  per  cent  interest,  —  a  very  popular 
method  of  obtaining  interest  on  temporary  deposits. 
A  favorite  form  with  Chase  was  the  "demand 
notes,"  as  issued  under  acts  of  July  17  and  Au 
gust  5,  1861,  the  authority  to  terminate  December 
31,  1862.  These  were  in  denominations  as  low  as 
five  dollars,  bore  no  interest,  and  were  not  legal 
tender ;  eventually  they  reached  $60,000,000,  but 
they  were  superseded  by  the  legal  tenders  and  re 
tired  in  1862  and  1863.  The  demand  notes  were 
the  forerunners  of  the  United  States  paper  cur 
rency,  or  "  greenbacks,"  and  were  from  the  first 
intended  to  circulate  side  by  side  with  state  bank 
notes.  Even  after  the  suspension  of  specie  pay 
ments  they  stood  at  par  in  gold,  because  they  were 
receivable  for  customs. 

The  whole  system  of  short  loans  was  an  unfortu 
nate  makeshift.  Since  it  was  impossible  to  foresee 
expenses  a  year  ahead,  Chase's  budgets  were  all 
estimates.  What  he  did  was  to  raise  all  the  money 
he  could,  in  every  possible  way ;  to  refund  his  tem 
porary  loans  into  bonds,  so  far  as  he  could,  and 
then  to  resort  to  new  short  loans  for  pressing 
needs.  When  everything  else  failed  he  issued 
more  legal  tenders. 

In  December,  1861,  the  funded  debt  of  the 
United  States  (not  including  notes)  was  $280,- 
000,000,  of  which  about  $200,000,000  had  been 
contracted  since  March,  1861.  While  the  question 
of  taxes  was  pending,  and  indeed  during  the  many 
months  before  they  could  become  productive, 


\ 
TAXATION,  LOANS,  ANti  LEGAL  TENDERS    243 

Chase  was  by  the  necessities  of  the  case  obliged  to 
put  forth  new  issues  of  bonds.  The  second  great 
loan  act,  February  25,  1862,  authorized  the  issue 
of  $500,000,000  in  the  so-called  "  five-twenty " 
bonds.  Chase  himself  proposed  the  two  limitations 
in  the  issue  —  the  fixing  of  the  interest  at  six  per 
cent,  and  the  payment  of  interest  in  gold.  A 
twenty-year  bond  at  such  rates  of  interest  as  were 
usual  in  the  country  during  the  Civil  War  should 
have  been  a  good  investment ;  but  neither  of  the 
two  provisions  worked  as  had  been  expected.  To 
furnish  the  specie  for  the  interest  the  import 
duties  were  levied  in  gold,  a  provision  reasonable 
in  itself  and  helpful  to  the  Treasury  ;  but  the  bonds 
would  not  sell  at  par  on  a  specie  basis,  because 
the  investing  public  in  the  United  States  and 
abroad  thought  six  per  cent  too  little  for  the  risk ; 
and  by  making  the  legal  tenders  convertible  into 
the  bonds,  Chase  did  not  raise  the  credit  of  the 
notes,  and  did  inevitably  depress  the  price  of  his 
bonds  to  par  in  greenbacks.  The  continued  effect 
of  these  causes  was  that  large  blocks  of  Civil  War 
bonds  were  sold  at  gold  values  of  50  or  even  40, 
on  which  was  paid  an  interest  which,  measured  in 
greenbacks,  was  12  per  cent  to  15  per  cent,  with 
the  obligation  of  eventually  redeeming  in  full  in 
gold.  The  purchaser  of  a  "  ten-forty "  five  per 
cent  bond  in  1864  had  therefore  virtually  a  20 
per  cent  investment  for  at  least  ten  years. 

In  placing  the  bonds,  Chase  wisely  determined 
not  to  depend  longer  upon  banks,  but  to  put  the 


244  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

whole  matter  in  charge  of  a  general  agent.  The 
person  selected  for  this  important  national  service 
was  Jay  Cooke,  a  man  of  great  energy,  which  he 
infused  into  local  agencies  established  with  banks 
and  bankers  throughout  the  United,  States.  But 
in  order  to  place  the  bonds  at  all,  it  was  necessary 
to  allow  a  commission  of  three-eighths  of  one  per 
cent ;  which,  however  moderate  in  itself,  was  a 
monopoly  privilege,  and  caused  plenty  of  hard 
feeling  and  some  reflections  on  the  secretary. 
With  every  exertion,  the  actual  subscriptions  to 
permanent  loans  during  1862-63  amounted  to  only 
1175,000,000,  while  the  taxes  produced  only  $111,- 
000,000;  the  expenditures  were  1704,000,000, 
leaving  1418,000,000  to  be  raised  by  temporary 
loans  and  paper  money.  For  two  years,  from 
July,  1861,  to  July,  1863,  the  total  expenditures 
were  $1,189,000,000,  the  receipts  from  taxation 
$163,000,000,  and  from  funded  loans  only  $235,- 
000,000.  This  leaves  $791,000,000,  or  more  than 
two  thirds  of  the  whole,  which  had  to  be  made  up 
by  temporary  loans  of  various  kinds  and  by  legal 
tender  notes  which  were  a  forced  loan.  In  the 
next  year,  1863-64,  much  of  the  floating  obligation 
was  at  last  funded,  and  the  rising  taxes  came  to 
the  relief  of  the  government,  so  that  when  Chase 
went  out  of  office,  in  July,  1864,  he  left  a  funded 
debt  of  $769,000,000,  short-term  debts  of  $516,- 
000,000,  and  paper  currency  to  the  amount  of 
$455,000,000.  This  was  simply  hand  to  mouth 
finance,  issues  of  notes  from  time  to  time  making 


TAXATION,  LOANS,  AND  LEGAL  TENDERS    245 

up  for  fluctuations  in  the  various  forms  of  tem 
porary  debt ;  and  the  proceeds  of  loans  anticipated 
long  before  they  were  paid  in. 

Except  certain  one,  two,  and  three  year  interest- 
bearing  legal  tender  notes  first  authorized  March 
3,  18G3,  the  obligations  just  described  might  be 
refused  by  any  creditor  of  the  government  who  did 
not  choose  to  accept  them ;  and  the  early  demand 
notes  were  the  only  ones  that  freely  circulated 
during  1861.  But  in  November,  1861,  Chase  was 
cogitating  a  larger  issue  of  some  kind,  and  he  said 
to  the  banks :  "  You  ask  me  to  borrow  the  credit 
of  local  banks  in  the  form  of  circulation.  I  prefer 
to  put  the  credit  of  the  people  into  notes  and  use 
them  as  money." 

The  necessity  for  some  kind  of  regular  currency 
had  been  felt  throughout  1861,  when  the  Western 
bank  circulation  was  giving  way ;  and  it  was  ac 
cented  in  January,  1862,  when  the  specie  began  to 
disappear  from  circulation.  The  state  bank  notes 
then  amounted  only  to  1184,000,000,  which  was 
not  sufficient  for  the  needs  of  the  country ;  and 
many  of  them  were  of  doubtful  value.  The  pa 
tient  secretary  was  at  once  beset  by  all  sorts  of 
wild  schemes  for  replacing  or  supplementing  them 
by  a  government  currency.  One  friend  suggested 
circulating  notes  with  accumulating  interest  at 
3T6<j%  per  cent ;  another  proposed  a  system  of  gov 
ernment  notes  redeemable  in  land  ;  another  thought 
that  the  United  States  should  take  up  the  outstand 
ing  bank  paper ;  and  others  that  the  secretary 


246  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

should  ask  for  authority  to  issue  legal  tender  gov 
ernment  notes.  For  some  months  the  premium  on 
gold  was  very  slight,  but  after  the  military  disas 
ters  of  July,  1862,  the  United  States  notes  sank 
to  84  per  cent,  measured  in  specie. 

Two  rival  plans  now  presented  themselves  to 
Congress.  Mr.  Chase  was  willing  to  issue  large 
amounts  of  demand  notes,  taking  the  chances  of 
their  deterioration ;  on  the  other  hand,  Judge 
Spaulding,  the  chairman  of  the  sub-committee  of 
the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  was  convinced 
that  the  only  way  to  sustain  such  issues  was  to 
make  them  legal  tender.  After  a  long  fight  in 
Congress,  an  act  was  passed  on  February  25, 1862, 
authorizing  the  issue  of  $  150,000,000  in  notes,  to 
be  reissued  as  they  were  presented  for  redemption, 
"  and  to  be  lawful  money  and  a  legal  tender  in 
payment  of  all  debts,  public  and  private,  within 
the  United  States,  except  duties  on  imports  and 
interest  on  the  public  debt."  The  country  was 
thus  committed  to  a  policy  of  government  legal 
tender  notes,  and  throughout  the  war,  whenever 
taxes  and  loans  proved  insufficient,  recourse  was 
always  had  to  this  expedient ;  when  the  war  ended, 
$431,000,000  of  these  legal  tender  notes  were  in 
circulation.  As  silver  suddenly  disappeared  from 
circulation,  acts  of  July  17,  1862,  and  March  3, 
1863,  authorized  also  the  issue  of  fractional  cur 
rency  in  paper,  and  the  amount  eventually  reached 
145,000,000. 

No  act  in  Chase's  life  has  caused  so  much  dis- 


TAXATION,  LOANS,  AND  LEGAL  TENDERS    247 

cussion  as  his  attitude  on  the  legal  tenders  ;  he 
has  been  held  up  to  odium  as  yielding  to  a  pressure 
from  an  uninformed  Congress,  which  he  might  have 
safely  resisted.  In  his  report  of  December,  1861, 
he  had  dwelt  upon  the  dangers  of  a  national  paper 
currency,  even  without  the  legal  tender  quality, 
saying  that  "  in  his  judgment  possible  disasters  so 
far  outweigh  the  probable  benefits  from  the  plan, 
that  he  feels  himself  constrained  to  forbear  recom 
mending  its  adoption."  Judge  Spaulding  pre 
pared  the  draft  of  a  statute  to  authorize  in  terms 
the  issue  of  legal  tender  notes,  and  thereby  raised 
the  question  of  constitutionality ;  whereupon  Attor 
ney-General  Bates  gave  the  informal  opinion  that 
Congress  had  the  power  to  issue  legal  tenders. 
Chase  saw  that  Congress  was  outrunning  his 
recommendations,  and  he  called  a  conference  of 
bankers  and  members  of  the  committees  of  Con 
gress  to  find  some  counter  plan  upon  which  all 
might  combine.  On  January  15  the  representa 
tives  of  the  banks  agreed  to  a  plan  which  was  to 
relieve  the  country  from  the  necessity  of  a  legal 
tender  act ;  but  on  January  22,  when  the  currency 
bill  was  sent  to  Chase  for  his  comments,  he  had 
no  argument  to  make  against  the  legal  tender 
clause  further  than  to  express  the  regret  that  it 
was  considered  necessary  ;  thenceforth  the  oppo 
nents  of  the  measure  were  deprived  of  his  power 
ful  influence.  On  a  test  vote  in  the  House,  the 
legal  tender  clause  stood  93  to  53 ;  and  on  Feb 
ruary  4  Chase  gave  up  the  struggle,  "  on  condition 


248  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

that  a  tax  adequate  for  interest  and  sinking  fund 
and  the  ordinary  expenditures  be  provided,  and 
that  a  uniform  banking  system  be  authorized." 

The  responsibility  for  the  issue  of  legal  tender 
notes,  and  especially  for  the  continued  and  exces 
sive  issue,  is  difficult  to  place.  It  has  often  been 
urged  that  by  insisting  on  high  taxation  and  by 
issuing  demand  notes  without  the  legal  tender 
quality,  the  war  might  have  been  fought  through 
without  recourse  to  this  expedient.  The  responsi 
bility  for  the  delay  in  new  taxes  certainly  lies 
with  Congress,  or  perhaps  with  the  administration 
as  a  whole,  rather  than  with  the  secretary ;  though 
it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  new  taxes  of  1862 
were  supposed  to  be  severer  than  they  proved,  for 
all  authorities  much  overestimated  their  probable 
proceeds.  When  their  inadequacy  was  seen  in 
1863,  Chase  urged  "  the  enactment  of  such  laws  as 
will  secure  the  increase  of  the  internal  revenue  to 
the  amount  originally  estimated,  of  1150,000,000 
a  year."  From  the  tariff  alone  adequate  revenue 
was  not  to  be  expected  ;  for  Congress  was  much 
more  disposed  to  add  to  the  protective  than  to  the 
revenue  schedules.  The  real  difficulty,  so  far  as 
taxation  was  concerned,  was  the  continued  under 
estimate  of  the  probable  duration  of  the  war,  and 
the  lack  of  experience  of  the  ability  of  a  prosperous 
and  energetic  people  to  bear  the  burdens  of  a  long 
conflict.  Without,  high  taxes  to  give  a  basis  for 
the  credit  of  the  government,  borrowing  was  diffi 
cult  and  the  time  loans  expected  in  1862  could  not 


TAXATION,  LOANS,  AND  LEGAL  TENDERS    249 

be  obtained  in  sufficient  sums.  There  was  plenty 
of  capital,  as  was  shown  by  the  large  temporary 
deposits  with  the  government,  but  the  capitalists 
had  many  profitable  investments  before  them,  and 
felt  doubtful  of  the  outcome  of  the  war.  So  far 
as  taxation  is  concerned,  Chase  showed  little  initia 
tive,  and  as  a  consequence,  lost  his  leadership  at 
the  outset. 

Nobody  then  or  since  has  been  able  to  point  out 
a  way  whereby  the  issue  of  government  notes  of 
some  kind  might  have  been  averted.  There  was, 
however,  a  very  strong  objection  to  giving  them 
the  legal  tender  quality,  although  the  idea  was  by 
no  means  new,  and  was  proposed  in  Congress  about 
the  end  of  the  War  of  1812.  Chase  had  evidently 
been  turning  the  objections  to  the  plan  over  in  his 
mind,  for  on  June  3,  1861,  a  friend  sent  him  a 
scheme  for  legal  tender  notes  redeemable  in  gold, 
silver,  or  interest-bearing  treasury  notes ;  but  the 
secretary's  instincts  were  against  any  system  which 
stretched  the  national  powers  and  impaired  preex 
isting  contracts.  For  two  months  before  the  act 
passed  he  stood  out  against  a  legal  tender  clause, 
first  by  direct  argument,  then  by  trying  to  organize 
a  counter  scheme,  and  finally  by  refusing  to  give 
his  influence  in  favor  of  the  plan  ;  but  as  has  been 
seen,  his  arguments  did  not  convince  Congress,  his 
counter  scheme  did  not  satisfy  the  bankers,  and  in 
the  end  the  clause  was  put  into  the  bill  whether  he 
would  or  no. 

Undoubtedly  it  was  the  duty  of  a  finance  minis- 


250  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

ter  to  lead,  and  of  Congress  to  defer,  in  such  a 
discussion  as  that  on  legal  tenders ;  but  if  Chase 
ever  thought  of  appealing  to  the  country  over  the 
head  of  Congress,  he  quickly  gave  up  the  idea ; 
for  when  the  question  came  to  the  test,  he  found 
against  him,  not  only  the  Committee  on  Ways  and 
Means,  but  the  great  banking  interests  of  the  coun 
try  ;  and  the  imperious  need  of  speedy  provision 
for  the  Treasury  did  not  allow  delay.  Chase  was 
simply  overborne  by  the  weight  of  his  counselors, 
and  further  opposition  would  only  have  emphasized 
his  defeat. 

Besides  the  testimony  of  shrewd  observers  at 
the  time,  there  are  still  in  existence  letters  from 
many  bankers  and  business  men  in  all  parts  of  the 
country,  and  especially  in  New  York,  Philadelphia, 
and  Boston,  insisting  on  the  legal  tender  clause. 
Among  these  men  were  Assistant  Treasurer  John 
J.  Cisco  ;  and  George  Opdyke,  who  in  an  elaborate 
memorial  of  January  28,  1862,  set  forth  the  argu 
ment  that  the  legal  tender  clause  would  strengthen 
the  interest-bearing  securities  of  the  government, 
and  urged  that  without  it  the  government  would 
soon  be  unable  to  purchase  supplies  for  the  army 
or  to  keep  its  bonds  from  a  rapid  fall.  Another 
phase  of  the  question  is  set  forth  in  a  letter  from 
T.  C.  Henry  of  Philadelphia,  who  insisted  upon 
a  legal  tender  quality  in  order  to  prevent  the  gov 
ernment  notes  from  sinking  below  bank  paper ;  for 
some  of  the  banks  at  this  time  adopted  the  ill- 
timed  practice  of  refusing  to  take  the  demand 


TAXATION,  LOANS,  AND  LEGAL  TENDERS    251 

notes  in  ordinary  deposits,  with  a  view  to  show 
that  the  credit  of  their  own  notes  was  better  than 
that  of  the  Treasury  ;  while  other  concerns,  espe 
cially  the  savings  banks,  were  furious  at  this  at 
tempt  to  throw  them  back  upon  wholly  irredeem 
able  bank  notes.  A  few  men,  like  William  "Welsh 
of  Philadelphia,  urged  the  secretary  not  to  yield 
the  point ;  but  had  he  continued  to  hold  out  against 
Congress,  he  would  have  parted  company  with  the 
men  through  whom  alone  he  could  expect  to  place 
loans.  He  yielded,  not  to  an  uninformed  Con 
gress,  but  to  the  wisest  men  with  whom  he  could 
consult;  and  he  yielded  because  he  expected  to 
hold  the  legal  tender  notes  near  par. 

The  constitutional  question  played  a  great  part 
in  the  debates  in  Congress,  giving  rise  to  indignant 
remonstrances  and  denunciations ;  but  this  side  of 
the  problem  seems  at  the  time  to  have  had  less 
weight  in  Chase's  mind  than  the  disorganization 
of  contracts  and  the  danger  of  a  depreciated  cur 
rency.  In  his  thought  this  latter  danger  was  to 
be  removed  by  his  national  bank  project,  through 
which  a  new  and  sound  currency  was  speedily  to 
take  the  place  of  the  government  issues.  He  and 
his  friends  expected  a  moderate  issue  of  the  new 
notes  to  tide  the  government  over  until  the  rising 
flood  of  taxes,  the  large  subscriptions  to  loans,  and 
the  credit  of  national  banks  should  make  it  possi 
ble  to  refund  the  notes  and  at  the  same  time  to 
meet  the  expenses  of  the  government. 

It  is  remarkable  that  Chase  did  not  foresee  the 


252  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

two  interactive  features  of  the  legal  tender  act 
which  gave  him  much  trouble  in  the  long  run, 
namely,  the  coin  duties,  and  the  conversion  of  legal 
tenders  at  par  into  six  per  cent,  bonds.  Since 
gold  was  necessary  for  the  payment  of  duties,  it 
must  be  had  by  the  importers  at  any  price,  and 
the  arrangement  therefore  lent  itself  to  a  specu 
lation  in  gold,  which  was  really  a  speculation  in 
depreciation  of  the  legal  tender  notes.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  scheme  was  really  a  somewhat 
clumsy  system  of  redemption,  since  the  holder  of 
legal  tenders  could  always  turn  them  into  a  coin- 
bearing  security. 


CHAPTER  X 

SLAVERY   IN   THE   CIVIL   WAR 

TOWARD  the  end  of  1861  slavery  became  the 
central  point,  both  of  divergence  between  parties 
and  of  differences  within  the  parties  ;  and  there 
after  the  question  became  more  and  more  momen 
tous,  till  it  culminated  in  the  second  Emancipation 
Proclamation  of  January  1, 1863.  From  that  time 
on,  the  anti-slavery  forces  were  in  the  ascendant, 
and  did  not  rest  till  in  March,  1865,  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment  to  the  Constitution  was  laid  before 
the  state  legislatures. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  war  the  Republican 
party  was  not  an  anti-slavery  party,  its  most  ad 
vanced  principle  being  that  no  new  slave  Territo 
ries  or  slave  States  should  be  permitted  ;  and  in 
the  tumultuous  tides  of  public  feeling  after  the  fir 
ing  on  Fort  Sumter,  the  greatest  efforts  were  made 
to  prevent  the  slave  question  from  coming  to  the 
front.  At  least  four  different  elements  may  be 
distinguished  in  the  supporters  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
administration :  first,  the  anti-slavery  Republi 
cans,  of  whom  Chase  was  the  only  distinct  repre 
sentative  in  the  cabinet ;  second,  the  moderate 
Republicans,  of  whom  a  type,  if  not  a  leader,  was 


254  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

Seward ;  third,  the  war  Democrats,  at  first  headed 
by  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  who  offered  his  personal 
support  and  aid  to  the  President,  and  who,  with 
his  followers,  believed  and  expected  that  the  war 
would  be  finished  without  affecting  slavery  in 
the  States ;  fourth,  the  loyal  border-state  men, 
many  of  them  slaveholders,  represented  in  the 
South  by  Crittenden,  and  in  the  cabinet  by  Bates 
and  Montgomery  Blair.  Such  men  adhered  to  the 
Union  under  the  assurance  that  their  property 
rights  would  be  safeguarded. 

To  reassure  both  war  Democrats  and  border- 
state  men,  the  House  of  Representatives,  on  the 
day  after  the  battle  of  Bull  Run,  by  a  vote  of  107 
to  2,  passed  the  following  resolution  :  "  Resolved 
by  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the,  Congress 
of  the  United  States,  That  the  present  deplorable 
civil  war  has  been  forced  upon  the  country  by  the 
disunionists  of  the  Southern  States,  now  in  arms 
against  the  constitutional  government,  and  in  arms 
around  the  capital ;  that  in  this  national  emer 
gency  Congress,  banishing  all  feelings  of  mere 
passion  or  resentment,  will  recollect  only  its  duty 
to  the  whole  country ;  that  this  war  is  not  waged 
on  their  part  in  any  spirit  of  oppression,  or  for  any 
purpose  of  conquest  or  subjugation,  or  purpose  of 
overthrowing  or  interfering  with  the  rights  of  es 
tablished  institutions  of  those  States,  but  to  defend 
and  maintain  the  supremacy  of  the  Constitution 
and  to  preserve  the  Union  with  all  the  dignity, 
equality,  and  rights  of  the  several  States  unim- 


SLAVERY  IN  THE  CIVIL   WAR  255 

paired,  and  that  as  soon  as  these  objects  are  accom 
plished  the  war  ought  to  cease." 

In  most  of  the  States  an  attempt  was  made  to 
find  a  common  political  ground  for  Republicans, 
and  for  those  war  Democrats  who  could  not  accept 
the  party  designation  of  their  former  opponents. 
Throughout  1861  and  1862  this  fusion  was  kept 
up,  and  in  1863  for  a  time  took  the  name  of 
Union  Party.  Not  until  1864  did  the  Republican 
party  again  come  forward  as  an  entirely  independ 
ent  organization,  and  rid  itself  of  such  of  the 
remaining  war  Democrats  as  preferred  to  return  to 
their  own  Democratic  organization. 

That  the  war  might  be  fatal  to  slavery  was, 
however,  evident  to  some  minds  from  the  first ;  and 
in  April,  1861,  a  correspondent  pointed  out  to 
Chase  the  precise  method  which  was  to  be  the  solu 
tion  of  the  question.  "  Why  should  not  this  ad 
ministration  place  itself  upon  the  construction 
given  to  the  Constitution  by  John  Quincy  Adams, 
that  the  state  of  war  would  confer  a  constitutional 
power  upon  the  government  to  proclaim  emancipa 
tion  ;  then  declare  the  seceded  States  in  a  condi 
tion  of  rebellion,  and  by  a  proclamation  of 
emancipation  obtain  a  power  over  the  subject  race 
to  assist  in  the  restoration  of  order  in  the  rebellious 
States?" 

At  that  time  Lincoln  was  not  ready  to  take  up 
either  the  idea  of  emancipation  by  proclamation  or 
the  enlistment  of  negro  troops  ;  he  still  believed 
that  the  solution  was  to  be  emancipation  by  the 

•/^?s 

f  TT -NT TV F.RS1T Y 


256  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

voluntary  action  of  the  States,  through  the  assist 
ance  of  the  general  government.  Throughout  1861 
his  mind  dwelt  on  schemes  for  compensated  eman 
cipation  and  the  deportation  of  the  freedmen  to 
some  other  part  of  the  world,  schemes  which  had 
been  favorite  ideas  with  him  for  ten  years ;  and 
nothing  but  the  relentless  logic  of  events  convinced 
him  that  more  violent  methods  were  both  possible 
and  desirable. 

The  hostilities  of  1861  brought  out  several  points 
of  altercation  concerning  slaves,  especially  the  con 
fiscation  of  slaves  belonging  to  rebel  masters  and 
the  status  of  fugitives  who  had  come  within  the 
Federal  lines.  It  was  a  grief  to  Chase  that  he 
could  not  support  General  Fremont's  proclamation 
of  August  30,  1861,  which  declared  free  the  slaves 
of  all  persons  in  the  State  of  Missouri  who  were 
taking  an  active  part  with  the  enemy  in  the  field. 
Chase  defended  the  action  of  the  President  in  an 
nulling  this  pronunciamento,  partly  on  the  technical 
grounds  that  the  recent  confiscation  act  of  Congress 
had  limited  the  confiscation  of  slaves  to  such  ne 
groes  as  had  actually  been  used  in  the  rebellion, 
and  partly  because,  as  he  wrote,  "  I  am  sure  that 
neither  the  President  nor  any  member  of  his  ad 
ministration  has  any  desire  to  convert  this  war  for 
the  Union  and  for  national  existence  .  .  .  into  a 
war  upon  any  state  institution." 

Butler's  shrewd  solution  of  the  fugitive  question 
in  May,  1861,  held  the  negroes  who  had  come 
within  his  lines  to  be  "  contraband  of  war ;  "  this 


SLAVERY  IN  THE   CIVIL  WAR  257 

declaration  had  Chase's  sympathy  and  support,  and 
on  October  8  he  took  the  unusual  step  of  sending 
to  the  "  National  Intelligencer  "  a  leading  article,  in 
which  he  approved  using  the  service  of  the  fugitive 
negroes  in  the  same  way  in  which  it  had  been  em 
ployed  on  the  other  side ;  but  suggested  that  in  the 
end  such  persons  ought  to  be  transported  to  some 
tropical  region,  in  order  that  "  all  injurious  influ 
ence  from  their  emancipation  would  be  averted, 
while  loyal  masters,  provided  that  they  remain 
loyal,  can  be,  and  doubtless  will  be,  fully  indemni 
fied." 

The  same  Congress  which  in  1861  and  in  1862 
showed  a  disposition  to  make  a  financial  policy  of 
its  own,  also  outran  the  President  and  his  cabinet 
on  the  question  of  slavery.  On  December  16, 1861, 
a  bill  was  offered  for  the  total  abolition  of  slavery 
in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  on  April  16, 1862, 
the  act  was  passed,  including  a  compensation  to  the 
owners.  As  a  consequence  the  three  thousand 
slaves  in  the  District  were  shortly  emancipated  at 
a  cost  to  the  government  of  about  81,000,000. 
The  District  of  Columbia  act  was  an  assertion  of  a 
constitutional  right  which  had  always  been  claimed 
by  the  North;  but  before  that  bill  became  law 
another  proposition  was  introduced,  nominally  "  to 
render  freedom  national  and  slavery  sectional." 
but  really  to  put  into  practice,  in  defiance  of  the 
Dred  Scott  decision,  the  doctrine  that  Congress 
could  and  should  prohibit  slavery  in  the  Territories. 
Eventually  this  bill  became  a  statute,  prohibiting 


258  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

slavery  and  involuntary  servitude  in  all  the  Terri 
tories  of  the  United  States  then  existing  or  which 
thereafter  might  be  formed.  On  July  17  a  second 
confiscation  act  provided  that  the  disloyalty  of  a 
master  should  be  a  bar  to  any  legal  proceedings 
which  he  might  bring  to  claim  the  service  of  his 
slave.  By  another  statute,  officers  of  the  army 
were  forbidden  to  render  any  assistance  in  the 
return  of  fugitives  even  to  loyal  masters. 

Though  slavery  was  undermined  by  this  series  of 
acts,  all  passed  within  a  year  from  the  beginning 
of  active  hostilities,  it  still  remained  legal  in  the 
loyal  border  States,  and  the  machinery  of  the  Fugi 
tive  Slave  Act  of  1850  was  in  operation  ;  while 
slaveholders  in  the  seceded  States  remained  in  legal 
possession  of  their  slaves,  provided  the  masters  had 
taken  no  actual  part  in  the  war.  Nevertheless,  on 
both  sides  of  the  military  lines  the  institution  was 
disorganized  and  in  danger ;  thousands  of  negroes 
flocked  to  the  camps  from  the  border  States,  and 
in  the  disturbed  conditions  of  the  time  could  not 
be  recovered  by  their  masters ;  other  thousands 
found  their  way  out  of  the  Confederacy  across  the 
front,  and  gathered  about  the  headquarters  of  the 
Northern  armies. 

By  this  time  Chase  had  come  forward  as  the 
leading  anti-slavery  spirit  in  the  cabinet,  and 
sought  an  opportunity  to  make  his  principles  felt. 
Through  his  functions  as  the  head  of  the  department 
which  dealt  with  confiscated  and  abandoned  pro 
perty,  he  had  a  special  relation  with  the  refugees 


SLAVERY  IN   THE   CIVIL  WAR  259 

from  the  South  ;  and  after  the  taking  of  Port  Royal, 
on  the  coast  of  North  Carolina,  in  November,  1861, 
he  was  allowed  to  direct  the  first  experiment  in 
organizing  and  civilizing  the  former  slaves.  In 
January,  18G2,  he  sent  down  his  friend,  Edward 
L.  Pierce  of  Boston,  an  old-time  abolitionist,  who 
had  already  been  at  Port  Royal  and  hence  knew 
something  of  the  conditions  there.  When  Pierce, 
at  Chase's  request,  waited  upon  Lincoln  to  discuss 
with  him  what  might  be  done  for  the  freedmen, 
the  President  broke  in  upon  him  impatiently  with 
the  inquiry,  "  What 's  all  this  itching  to  get  niggers 
into  our  lines  ?  "  and  he  reluctantly  authorized  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  give  to  Pierce  such 
instructions  as  might  be  necessary.  In  these  in 
structions  Chase  expressed  his  judgment  that  "  the 
persons  who  have  thus  been  abandoned  by  their 
masters,  and  who  are  received  into  the  service  of 
the  country,  can  never,  without  great  inhumanity 
on  the  part  of  the  government,  be  reduced  again  to 
slavery."  In  his  mind,  therefore,  military  emanci 
pation  had  begun,  and  the  problem  of  caring  for 
the  former  slaves  must  be  assumed  by  the  govern 
ment.  He  took  a  great  interest  in  the  gathering 
and  training  of  the  refugees,  and  several  times 
visited  the  station  in  person. 

In  the  spring  of  1862  the  direction  of  the  work 
was  transferred  to  the  War  Department,  but 
Chase,  through  his  special  control  of  the  collection 
of  cotton,  kept  in  close  touch  with  the  missionary 
enterprise.  General  Hunter  was  put  in  command 


260  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

of  the  troops,  but  General  Saxton  was  by  Chase's 
personal  request  appointed  military  governor  of 
South  Carolina,  and  supervised  the  fugitives  who 
occupied  most  of  the  little  district  within  the 
Federal  lines.  The  sea  islands  were  again  brought 
under  cultivation ;  plantations  were  started,  and 
lands  in  small  plots  were  assigned  to  individual 
negroes.  Schools  were  established  by  benevolent 
societies  in  the  North,  and,  in  spite  of  many  dis 
couragements,  the  experiment  of  making  former 
slaves  self-supporting  was  on  the  whole  successful. 
In  this  work  Chase  felt  that  he  had  had  neither  sup 
port  nor  sympathy  from  the  President ;  but  when 
negro  troops  began  to  be  organized,  the  settlement 
at  Port  Royal  became  important  as  a  recruiting  sta 
tion,  and  at  the  end  of  the  war  a  prosperous  com 
munity  appeared  to  have  been  founded.  Then 
questions  were  raised  as  to  the  title  to  the  lands 
distributed  to  the  f  reedmen ;  and  in  time  most  of 
them  were  dispossessed  of  the  little  holdings  for 
which  they  had  worked  so  hard,  and  the  experi 
ment  came  to  an  unhappy  end.  The  Port  Royal 
principle  of  special  supervision  and  protection  by 
the  government  was,  however,  continued  to  the  end 
of  reconstruction  times. 

Neither  fugitives  nor  refugees  could  much  affect 
the  other  great  problem  of  slavery,  —  the  status 
of  the  slaves  in  the  seceded  States.  President 
Lincoln,  himself  a  native  of  Kentucky,  had  always 
had  a  strong  sense  of  the  practical  difficulties 
and  dangers  of  emancipation  in  regions  where  the 


SLAVERY  IN  THE  CIVIL  WAR  261 

negroes  were  numerous  ;  hence  from  1861  to  1864 
he  continued  to  press  his  influence  to  the  farthest 
point  possible  in  favor  of  compensated  emancipa 
tion,  at  least  in  the  border  States.  Although 
Chase  had  looked  with  some  favor  on  this  plan 
in  1861,  he  finally  set  himself  distinctly  against 
Mr.  Lincoln's  corollary  scheme  for  colonization 
of  the  freed  negroes  in  the  West  Indies  or  in 
Central  America.  Chase  felt  that  the  Port  Royal 
experiment  had  been  neglected  because  uthe  col 
onization  delusion  and  negrophobia  dread  are  too 
potent  yet."  Upon  this  point  his  view  was  clearer 
than  that  of  the  President ;  for  colonization  in 
volved  depriving  the  South  of  its  laborers  and  the 
North  of  needed  soldiers,  and  Chase  was  quicker 
than  Lincoln  to  reach  the  point  where  he  was 
willing  to  risk  defection  of  the  border  States  and 
political  disturbance  in  the  North,  by  setting  free 
all  the  slaves  in  the  Confederacy. 

Before  the  war  had  been  going  on  many  months 
the  usefulness  of  the  negroes  as  laborers  on  the 
fortifications  began  to  be  seen,  and  a  few  early 
voices  were  heard  urging  their  enrollment  as 
troops.  Probably  one  of  the  earliest  of  these  sug 
gestions  was  made  in  May,  1861,  by  Elizur  Wright. 
"  At  its  foundation  the  war  is  all  about  the  black 
man.  Between  magnanimity  and  contempt,  we 
Northerners  may  be  willing  to  fight  it  out  for 
him,  and  entirely  without  his  aid.  But  events  are 
not  ruled  by  men,  and  before  the  war  is  through 
the  black  man  is  pretty  likely  to  be  fighting  for 


262  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

himself  on  one  side  or  the  other."  Notwithstand 
ing  the  fundamental  objection  to  using  slaves  as 
soldiers,  they  were  gathered  in  large  quantities 
by  the  Southern  authorities  for  work  on  fortifica 
tions,  and  free  negroes  were  in  a  few  cases  ac 
tually  enlisted  and  disciplined  in  the  rebel  army. 
At  the  capture  of  New  Orleans  a  regiment  of  such 
negro  troops  was  found  there. 

Serious  political  objections  stood  in  the  way  of 
negro  enlistments  either  in  Northern  States  or  in 
conquered  territory :  white  troops  objected  to  ser 
vice  alongside  negro  soldiers ;  and  it  was  feared  by 
many  and  hoped  by  a  few  that  the  effect  of  enlist 
ment  would  be  to  stir  up  slave  insurrections  in 
the  South.  On  May  9,  1862,  General  Hunter  at 
Hilton  Head  raised  the  issue  by  proclaiming  that 
"  slavery  and  martial  law  in  a  free  country  are 
altogether  incompatible.  The  persons  in  these 
three  States,  —  Georgia,  Florida,  and  South  Caro 
lina,  —  wherever  held  as  slaves,  are  therefore  de 
clared  forever  free ; "  at  the  same  time  he  began 
upon  his  own  responsibility  to  organize  colored 
troops.  With  this  action,  which  was  as  insubor 
dinate  as  the  similar  proclamation  of  Fremont  the 
year  before,  Chase  sympathized,  and  he  exerted 
his  influence,  though  without  avail,  against  its 
revocation  by  the  President.  "  I  have  never  been 
so  sorely  tried,"  he  wrote  to  Horace  Greeley,  "  in 
all  that  I  have  seen  in  the  shape  of  irregularities, 
assumptions  beyond  the  law,  extravagances,  defer 
ence  to  generals  and  reactionists  which  I  cannot 


SLAVERY  IN  THE   CIVIL   WAR  263 

approve,  ...  as  by  the  nullifying  of  Hunter's  pro 
clamation."  From  this  time  on  Chase  remained  a 
strong  advocate  of  arming  the  negroes,  and  of  mak 
ing  them  eventually  full  citizens.  Congress  soon 
came  to  the  point  of  authorizing  the  enlistment 
of  negroes,  by  the  act  of  July  17,  1862,  which 
empowered  the  President  "  to  employ  as  many 
persons  of  African  descent  as  he  may  deem  neces 
sary  and  proper  for  the  suppression  of  the  rebel 
lion,  and  for  these  purposes  he  may  organize  and 
use  them  in  such/  manner  as  he  may  judge  best 
for  the  public  welfare."  A  few  weeks  later  Secre 
tary  Stanton  authorized  the  enlistment  of  troops 
at  Port  Royal,  and  in  the  Emancipation  Proclama 
tion  of  January  1,  1863,  the  President  formally 
promised  to  receive  negroes  into  the  military  ser 
vice  of  the  United  States. 

Though  Chase  had  no  strong  influence  in  any 
of  the  legislative  or  executive  measures  relative 
to  slavery,  he  was  always  the  mainspring  of  anti- 
slavery  influence  within  the  councils  of  the  Presi 
dent  ;  to  him  the  abolitionists  throughout  the  coun 
try  appealed  for  such  action  by  the  President  as 
should  forever  stamp  the  institution  of  slavery 
with  the  crushing  disapproval  of  the  people  in 
arms.  Every  week  brought  suggestions  not  only 
that  the  government  had  a  duty  in  protecting  fugi 
tives  and  in  punishing  disloyal  masters  by  freeing 
their  slaves,  but  also  that  the  great  opportunity 
had  come  for  a  declaration  that  the  war  was  a  war 
upon  slavery ;  that,  as  Chase  told  Motley  in  June, 


264  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

1861,  if  the  North  was  otherwise  unable  to  put 
down  the  rebellion,  "  we  shall  then  draw  that  sword 
which  we  prefer  at  present  to  leave  in  the  sheath, 
and  we  shall  proclaim  the  total  abolition  of  slavery 
on  the  American  continent.  We  do  not  wish  this, 
we  deplore  it  because  of  the  ruin,  confiscation  of 
property,  and  of  the  servile  insurrections,  too  hor 
rible  to  contemplate,  which  would  follow." 

That  the  negroes  would  rise  if  there  was  a  good 
opportunity  seems  to  have  been  accepted  as  an 
axiom  on  both  sides;  but  the  South  understood 
the  character  of  the  negro  better  than  did  the 
North,  and  confidently  denied  its  own  axiom,  with 
drawing  its  able-bodied  white  men  from  the  plan 
tations,  for  military  service.  In  the  whole  history 
of  the  Civil  War,  there  is  no  case  of  a  rising  of 
slaves,  though,  till  the  first  proclamation  of  eman 
cipation  was  actually  issued,  Lincoln  shrank  from 
what  seemed  a  desperate  and  dangerous  appeal 
to  their  passions.  Chase  never  faltered,  but  used 
all  the  influence  that  he  possessed  upon  the  Pre 
sident  and  his  fellow  members  of  the  cabinet  to 
secure  the  desired  proclamation  ;  and  he  so  far 
realized  the  importance  of  the  issue  that  he  made 
in  his  diary  from  day  to  day  those  careful  entries 
of  the  discussions  in  the  cabinet  which  are  the  most 
definite  source  of  our  information  about  the  mo 
tives  of  Lincoln  and  his  advisers  at  this  crisis. 

In  July,  1862,  the  political  situation  was  threat 
ening  for  the  Republican  party.  The  country  was 
alarmed  by  disasters  in  the  field,  by  new  taxation, 


SLAVERY   IN   THE  CIVIL   WAR  265 

and  by  heavy  loans,  and  it  saw  no  likelihood  of 
concentrated  military  energy.  Chase  himself  was 
out  of  patience,  and  thought  seriously  of  seeking 
a  senatorship.  In  this  gloomy  period  Chase  earn 
estly  supported  and  even  outran  Lincoln's  purpose 
to  take  a  definite  step  which  would  be  unmistak 
able  to  the  country  and  to  foreign  nations.  His 
record  of  the  discussion  in  the  cabinet  runs  as 
follows  :  — 

July  21,  "  I  went  at  the  appointed  hour,  and 
found  that  the  President  had  been  profoundly  con 
cerned  at  the  present  aspect  of  affairs,  and  had 
determined  to  take  some  definite  steps  in  respect  to 
military  action  and  slavery."  To  such  a  step  most 
of  the  members  of  the  cabinet  were  favorably  in 
clined.  August  3,  "  I  expressed  my  conviction 
.  .  .  that  the  time  for  the  suppression  of  the  re 
bellion  without  interference  with  slavery  had  long 
passed.  .  .  .  Mr.  Seward  expressed  himself  as  in 
favor  of  any  measures  likely  to  accomplish  the 
results  I  contemplated,  which  could  be  carried  into 
effect  without  Proclamations  ;  and  the  President 
said  he  was  pretty  well  cured  of  objections  to  any 
measure  except  want  of  adaptedness  to  put  down 
the  rebellion  ;  but  did  not  seem  satisfied  that  the 
time  had  come  for  the  adoption  of  such  a  plan  as  I 
proposed." 

In  September  Chase  was  discouraged,  and  says  : 
"  I  have  urged  my  ideas  on  the  President  and  my 
associates,  till  I  begin  to  feel  that  they  are  irk 
some  to  the  first,  and  to  one  or  two,  at  least,  of  the 


266  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

second."  September  21,  hearing  that  the  Presi 
dent  was  busy,  he  conjectures,  "  Possibly  engaged 
on  Proclamation."  September  22  another  cabinet 
meeting  was  held,  the  result  of  which  was  the  pro 
clamation  of  1862.  Of  this  important  meeting  we 
have  a  full  and  animated  account  in  Chase's  diary 
and  memoranda  :  — 

"  To  Department  about  nine.  State  Depart 
ment  messenger  came,  with  notice  to  Heads  of 
Departments  to  meet  at  12.  Received  sundry 
callers.  Went  to  White  House. 

"  All  the  members  of  the  Cabinet  were  in  attend 
ance.  There  was  some  general  talk  ;  and  the  Pre 
sident  mentioned  that  Artemas  Ward  had  sent 
him  his  book.  Proposed  to  read  a  chapter  which 
he  thought  very  funny.  Read  it,  and  seemed  to 
enjoy  it  very  much  —  the  Heads  also  (except  Stan- 
ton)  of  course.  The  chapter  was  'High  handed 
Outrage  at  Utica.' 

"  The  President  then  took  a  graver  tone  and 
said :  — 

"  '  Gentlemen :  I  have,  as  you  are  aware,  thought 
a  great  deal  about  the  relation  of  this  war  to 
Slavery ;  and  you  all  remember  that,  several  weeks 
ago,  I  read  to  you  an  Order  I  had  prepared  on  this 
subject,  which,  on  account  of  objections  made  by 
some  of  you,  was  not  issued.  Ever  since  then,  my 
mind  has  been  much  occupied  with  this  subject, 
and  I  have  thought  all  along  that  the  time  for  act 
ing  on  it  might  very  probably  come.  I  think  the 
time  has  come  now.  I  wish  it  was  a  better  time. 


SLAVERY  IN  THE  CIVIL  WAR  267 

I  wish  that  we  were  in  a  better  condition.  The 
action  of  the  army  against  the  rebels  has  not  been 
quite  what  I  should  have  best  liked.  But  they 
have  been  driven  out  of  Maryland,  and  Pennsyl 
vania  is  no  longer  in  danger  of  invasion.  When 
the  rebel  army  was  at  Frederick,  I  determined,  as 
soon  as  it  should  be  driven  out  of  Maryland,  to 
issue  a  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  such  as  I 
thought  most  likely  to  be  useful.  I  said  nothing  to 
any  one  ;  but  I  made  the  promise  to  myself,  and 
(hesitating  a  little)  to  my  Maker.  The  rebel  army 
is  now  driven  out,  and  I  am  going  to  fulfill  that 
promise.  I  have  got  you  together  to  hear  what  I 
have  written  down.  I  do  not  wish  your  advice 
about  the  main  matter  —  for  that  I  have  deter 
mined  for  myself.  This  I  say  without  intending 
anything  but  respect  for  any  one  of  you.  But  I 
already  know  the  views  of  each  on  this  question. 
They  have  been  heretofore  expressed,  and  I  have 
considered  them  as  thoroughly  and  carefully  as  I 
can.  What  I  have  written  is  that  which  my  re 
flections  have  determined  me  to  say.  If  there  is 
anything  in  the  expressions  I  use,  or  in  any  other 
minor  matter,  which  any  one  of  you  thinks  had  best 
be  changed,  I  shall  be  glad  to  receive  the  sugges 
tions.  One  other  observation  I  will  make.  I  know 
very  well  that  many  others  might,  in  this  matter,  as 
in  others,  do  better  than  I  can  ;  and  if  I  were  sat 
isfied  that  the  public  confidence  was  more  fully  pos 
sessed  by  any  one  of  them  than  by  me,  and  knew 
of  any  Constitutional  way  in  which  he  could  be 


268  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

put  in  my  place,  he  should  have  it.  I  would  gladly 
yield  it  to  him.  But  though  I  believe  that  I  have 
not  so  much  of  the  confidence  of  the  people  as  I  had 
some  time  since,  I  do  not  know  that,  all  things  con 
sidered,  any  other  person  has  more  ;  and,  however 
this  may  be,  there  is  no  way  in  which  I  can  have 
any  other  man  put  where  I  am.  I  am  here.  I 
must  do  the  best  I  can,  and  bear  the  responsibility 
of  taking  the  course  which  I  feel  I  ought  to  take.' 

"The  President  then  proceeded  to  read  his 
Emancipation  Proclamation,  making  remarks  on 
the  several  parts  as  he  went  on,  and  showing  that 
he  had  fully  considered  the  whole  subject,  in  all  the 
lights  under  which  it  had  been  presented  to  him. 

"  After  he  had  closed,  Gov.  Seward  said  :  '  The 
general  question  having  been  decided,  nothing  can 
be  said  further  about  that.  Would  it  not,  however, 
make  the  Proclamation  more  clear  and  decided,  to 
leave  out  all  reference  to  the  act  being  sustained 
during  the  incumbency  of  the  present  President ; 
and  not  merely  say  that  the  government  "  recog 
nizes,"  but  that  it  will  maintain,  the  freedom  it 
proclaims  ?  ' 

"  I  followed,  saying  :  '  What  you  have  said, 
Mr.  President,  fully  satisfies  me  that  you  have 
given  to  every  proposition  which  has  been  made,  a 
kind  and  candid  consideration.  And  you  have 
now  expressed  the  conclusion  to  which  you  have 
arrived,  clearly  and  distinctly.  This  it  was  your 
right,  and  under  your  oath  of  office  your  duty,  to 
do.  The  Proclamation  does  not,  indeed,  mark  out 


SLAVERY   IN   THE   CIVIL   WAR  269 

exactly  the  course  I  should  myself  prefer.  But  I 
am  ready  to  take  it  just  as  it  is  written,  and  to 
stand  by  it  with  all  my  heart.  I  think,  however, 
the  suggestions  of  Gov.  Seward  very  judicious,  and 
shall  be  glad  to  have  them  adopted.' 

"  The  President  then  asked  us  severally  our 
opinions  as  to  the  modifications  proposed,  saying 
that  he  did  not  care  much  about  the  phrases  he 
had  used.  Every  one  favored  the  modification 
and  it  was  adopted.  Gov.  Seward  then  proposed 
that  in  the  passage  relating  to  colonization,  some 
language  should  be  introduced  to  show  that  the 
colonization  proposed  was  to  be  only  with  the  con 
sent  of  the  colonists,  and  the  consent  of  the  States 
in  which  colonies  might  be  attempted.  This,  too, 
was  agreed  to ;  and  no  other  modification  was  pro 
posed.  Mr.  Blair  then  said  that  the  question 
having  been  decided,  he  would  make  no  objection 
to  issuing  the  Proclamation  ;  but  he  would  ask  to 
have  his  paper,  presented  some  days  since,  against 
the  policy,  filed  with  the  Proclamation.  The  Pre 
sident  consented  to  this  readily.  And  then  Mr. 
Blair  went  on  to  say  that  he  was  afraid  of  the  in 
fluence  of  the  Proclamation  on  the  Border  States 
and  on  the  Army,  and  stated  at  some  length  the 
grounds  of  his  apprehensions.  He  disclaimed  most 
expressly,  however,  all  objection  to  Emancipation 
per  se,  saying  he  had  always  been  personally  in 
favor  of  it  —  always  ready  for  immediate  Emanci 
pation  in  the  midst  of  Slave  States,  rather  than 
submit  to  the  perpetuation  of  the  system." 


270  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

The  proclamation  was  preliminary,  but  its  effect 
was  immediate :  it  caused  parties  and  individuals 
to  declare  themselves.  Nevertheless  in  the  October 
and  November  elections  for  the  next  House  no 
Republican  majority  could  be  secured  out  of  the 
free  States  :  but  a  silent  and  drastic  process  was 
applied  by  the  military  in  the  loyal  border  States, 
which  caused  them  to  furnish  enough  Republican 
members  to  make  up  the  majority  without  which 
the  war  must  fail.  Upon  the  South  and  the  slaves, 
the  proclamation  had  no  immediate  effect ;  con 
trary  to  Chase's  judgment,  it  excepted  the  only 
territory  where  it  could  at  once  be  applied, —  those 
portions  of  the  seceded  States  then  occupied  by 
Northern  forces. 

At  the  cabinet  meeting  of  December  31,  1862, 
the  President  called  for  suggestions  on  a  final  pro 
clamation,  and  Chase  proposed  two  alternatives  :  to 
make  the  proclamation  apply  to  all  parts  of  the 
seceded  States  except  to  West  Virginia,  and  to 
omit  any  phrases  which  might  be  construed  to  in 
cite  servile  insurrections.  Neither  of  these  sugges 
tions  found  favor  with  the  President,  but  he  did 
adopt  almost  verbatim  the  dignified  final  paragraph 
written  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  :  "  And 
upon  this  act,  sincerely  believed  to  be  an  act  of 
justice,  warrantable  by  the  Constitution,  upon  mili 
tary  necessity,  I  invoke  the  considerate  judgment 
of  mankind,  and  the  gracious  favor  of  Almighty 
God."  With  that  invocation  it  went  to  the  world 
on  the  first  day  of  1863. 


SLAVERY  IN  THE  CIVIL  WAR  271 

Whether  the  proclamation  of  emancipation  had 
legal  effect  as  a  constitutional  exercise  of  the  war 
power,  or  whether  it  was  only  a  declaration  of  polit- 
cal  policy,  to  be  finally  carried  out  by  the  action  of 
the  Southern  States  and  the  Thirteenth  Amend 
ment,  was  a  question  which  gave  little  concern  to 
anti-slavery  men  during  1863  and  1864.  The 
purpose  of  the  administration  was  thenceforward 
undoubted,  and  the  whole  controversy  entered  upon 
a  new  stage,  in  which  the  principal  issues  were 
the  emancipation  acts  of  Maryland  and  Missouri, 
the  political  status  of  the  emancipated  negroes,  and 
the  use  of  negro  troops. 

In  the  movements  for  constitutional  amend 
ments  against  slavery  in  the  border  States,  Chase 
had  great  interest  and  little  influence.  Though 
opposed  by  the  powerful  influence  of  the  Blairs,  he 
continued  a  most  efficient  friend  of  the  Southern 
negroes,  and  he  used  his  opportunities  as  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  in  special  charge  of  border  traffic, 
to  support  schemes  for  reconstruction  intended  to 
protect  the  freedmen.  His  interposition  was  asked 
in  cases  in  which  negroes  floating  about  the  border 
States  were  taken  up  and  sold  for  their  jail  fees ;  in 
February,  1863,  he  assumed  the  right  to  supervise 
contracts  between  whites  and  negro  laborers  within 
the  Union  lines ;  and  he  sought  the  creation  of  a 
proposed  Bureau  of  Emancipation,  which  eventu 
ally  developed  into  the  Freedmen's  Bureau. 

Serious  questions  arose  out  of  the  enlistment  of 
black  troops,  which  proceeded  rapidly  during  1863. 


272  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

Through  Denison  and  other  federal  officeholders 
and  correspondents  Chase  did  his  utmost  to  stimu 
late  the  enlistment  of  negroes.  General  Butler  to 
some  degree  sympathized  with  this  purpose,  and 
enrolled  several  thousand  negroes;  but  his  suc 
cessor,  Banks,  held  back,  notwithstanding  Chase's 
efforts  to  encourage  him.  In  March,  1863,  Jack 
sonville  was  taken  and  held  by  Northern  troops, 
and  Chase  urged  that  it  be  made  a  centre  of  re 
cruiting.  His  purpose  in  both  States  was  not  only 
to  recruit  needed  troops  but  to  draw  negroes  out  of 
the  Southern  lines,  and  in  the  persons  of  the  negro 
soldiers  to  furnish  object  lessons  of  the  necessity 
of  supplementing  emancipation  by  sweeping  away 
all  the  legal  distinctions  which  hedged  the  negro 
about. 

Plainly,  Chase's  system  must  in  the  end  come  to 
an  insistence  on  negro  suffrage.  It  took  a  long 
time  for  him  clearly  to  see  that  this  was  the  logical 
result,  but  in  December,  1863,  he  urged  his  friends 
in  New  Orleans  to  recognize  the  principle  of  "  re 
organization  on  the  free  labor  and  free  suffrage 
basis."  "  How  would  it  do,"  he  asked  of  Horace 
Greeley,  "  to  advocate  something  like  this :  that 
the  new  constitution  [of  Louisiana]  contain  a  suf 
frage  article  ;  .  .  .  that  all  citizens  not  imprisoned 
for  crime  in  the  country,  who  desire  to  exercise 
the  right  of  suffrage,  being  twenty-one  years  of 
age,  present  themselves  for  examination  to  these 
commissioners,  and  on  being  found  able  to  read 
and  write,  and  possessed  of  a  competent  knowledge 


SLAVERY  IN  THE  CIVIL  WAR  273 

of  the  Constitution  of  the  State  and  the  United 
States,  receive  certificates,  describing  each  suffi 
ciently  so  as  to  identify  him,  in  virtue  of  which 
the  citizen  receiving  it  shall  be  entitled  to  receive 
the  right  of  suffrage?  Would  it  not  be  very 
honorable  for  Louisiana  and  Florida  to  lead  the 
way  in  this  country  to  an  electoral  community  with 
no  test  except  virtue  and  intelligence  ?  " 

So  long  as  Lincoln  lived,  little  progress  was 
made  in  this  direction,  and  a  year  later  Chase 
wrote :  "  I  fear  our  good  President  is  so  anxious 
for  the  restoration  of  the  Union  that  he  will  not 
care  sufficiently  about  the  basis  of  representation. 
In  my  judgment  there  is  none  sound  except  abso 
lute  justice  for  all,  and  ample  security  of  justice 
in  law  and  suffrage."  The  progress  of  public  sen 
timent  on  this  subject  is  a  part  of  the  story  of 
reconstruction. 


CHAPTER  XI 

NATIONAL  BANKS  AND  THE  GOLD  QUESTION 

IN  his  first  formal  report  to  Congress,  Chase 
foreshadowed  that  part  of  his  financial  system 
which  was  most  original,  most  permanent,  and  per 
haps  most  serviceable  to  the  country,  —  the  na 
tional  bank  scheme.  From  the  beginning  of  the 
government,  the  States  had  chartered  banks  of 
issue  upon  such  terms  and  with  such  security  as 
seemed  good  to  the  legislatures.  The  United 
States  Bank  of  1791  had  been  a  competitor  with 
these  state  institutions ;  and  the  second  United 
States  Bank  (1816  to  1836)  was  chartered  with 
the  express  purpose  of  furnishing  a  safe  note  cir 
culation,  which,  by  competition,  should  compel 
state  banks  to  keep  their  currency  on  a  specie 
basis.  In  1861  the  number  of  such  banks  was 
1600,  with  a  capital  of  8430,000,000  and  a  cir 
culation  of  over  8200,000,000,  of  which  nearly 
8150,000,000  was  in  Northern  States. 

Some  of  the  more  conservative  New  England 
and  Middle  States  required  a  deposit  of  securi 
ties,  in  order  to  redeem  the  circulating  notes  in 
case  of  the  failure  of  the  banks,  and  Louisiana 
and  Kentucky  had  two  of  the  securest  systems 


NATIONAL   BANKS  AND  GOLD   QUESTION    275 

in  the  Union.  The  best  Western  banks  had  re 
demption  agencies  in  Eastern  cities  ;  and  several 
of  the  Western  States  had  each  chartered  a  bank 
as  a  state  institution,  for  which  the  ultimate  se 
curity  was  the  credit  of  the  commonwealth.  Mul 
titudes  of  other  banks  had  no  separate  or  adequate 
security  for  their  circulating  notes  ;  while  hundreds 
of  kinds  of  bills  were  in  circulation,  and  new 
counterfeits  appeared  every  day.  The  result  was 
that  in  1861  more  than  five  thousand  sorts  of  al 
tered,  raised,  or  spurious  notes  were  afloat,  and 
such  was  the  suspicion  of  an  unfamiliar  bill  that 
cases  have  been  known  where  the  owner  of  a 
perfectly  good  fifty-dollar  note,  exchangeable  for 
specie  on  demand,  has  traveled  for  days  before 
he  could  find  any  one  who  would  so  much  as 
change  it. 

The  experience  of  the  eight  months  of  1861, 
when  great  difficulty  was  found  in  placing  loans 
through  even  the  best  of  these  banks,  convinced 
Chase  that  they  were  not  to  be  depended  upon  to 
stand  as  the  permanent  intermediary  between  the 
government  and  the  people  ;  and  we  have  already 
seen  that  the  legal-tender  controversy  was,  in  his 
judgment,  precipitated  by  the  existence  of  the 
bank  currency.  From  session  of  Congress  to  ses 
sion,  and  from  year  to  year,  Chase  insisted  upon 
a  new  bank  system,  till  in  1865  he  saw  his  project 
carried  out  in  all  the  details  which  he  thought 
essential,  and  the  system  still  remains  a  monu 
ment  to  its  founder. 


276  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

Just  when  or  why  Chase  first  resolved  to  break 
up  the  state  bank  currency  is  uncertain.  In  his 
report  of  July  4,  1861,  appears  an  innocent  recom 
mendation  of  taxes  "  on  distilled  liquors,  on  bank 
notes,  on  carriages,  and  similar  descriptions  of 
property ; "  but  in  a  letter  a  few  months  later  he 
explains  the  recommendation  as  intended  to  break 
down  the  competition  of  the  poorer  currency  with 
government  notes,  then  redeemable  in  gold.  He 
also  fearlessly  asserted  uthe  duty  of  the  general 
government  to  furnish  a  national  currency.  .  .  . 
Its  neglect  of  this  duty  has  cost  the  people  as 
much  as  this  war  will  cost  them."  In  his  re 
port  of  December,  1861,  Chase  laid  down  his 
favorite  principle,  that  a  paper  circulation  was  a 
loan  without  interest  made  by  the  people,  and  that 
the  government  was  fairly  entitled  to  the  profitable 
privilege.  He  followed  this  up  by  a  clear  state 
ment,  from  which  he  never  wavered,  "  that  Con 
gress  under  its  constitutional  powers  to  lay  taxes, 
to  regulate  commerce,  and  to  regulate  the  issue 
of  coin  possesses  ample  authority  to  control  the 
credit  circulation."  The  characteristic  features  of 
the  system  which  Chase  outlined,  and  for  which  he 
presented  the  draft  of  a  bill,  were  three  :  the  issue 
of  demand  bank  notes  redeemable  in  coin  ;  the 
requirement  that  United  States  bonds  should  be 
the  only  non-metallic  basis  for  circulation  ;  and  the 
preparation  and  issue  of  all  notes  under  the  direc 
tion  of  the  government.  He  thus  intended  to 
secure  simultaneously  the  three  advantages  of  a 


NATIONAL  BANKS  AND  GOLD   QUESTION    277 

safe  currency,  of  loans  to  the  government,  and  of 
a  simple  and  uniform  system  of  notes,  under  tlie 
guaranty  of  the  nation. 

It  was  one  thing  to  propose  so  sweeping  a  re 
form,  and  to  point  out  the  ease  with  which  the 
change  might  be  brought  about  through  a  simple 
transformation  of  the  state  bank  currency  into  a 
currency  founded  on  national  authority ;  it  was 
quite  another  to  meet  the  conservatism  of  Con 
gress  ;  and  it  was  still  more  difficult  to  overcome 
the  opposition  of  the  banks  themselves  to  the 
transformation  thus  suggested.  Though  Hooper 
of  Massachusetts,  one  of  the  few  approvers  of  the 
proposition,  was  a  member  of  the  Committee  of 
Ways  and  Means,  Thaddeus  Stevens,  as  chairman, 
reported  against  the  project  early  in  1862  ;  and 
Chase  thus  lost  the  opportunity  to  enter  on  what 
in  private  conversation  he  declared  to  be  "  the 
only  way  by  which  we  can  raise  the  means  to  carry 
on  the  war  and  save  the  country." 

During  1862  the  legal-tender  notes  were  freely 
poured  out,  till  by  October  1  they  reached  $200,- 
000,000.  The  expectation  that  they  would  be  con 
verted  in  large  quantities  into  interest -bearing 
loans  was  not  realized.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
state  bank  circulation  also  increased,  and  the  state 
banks  grew  more  determined  in  their  opposition  to 
the  renewal,  at  the  next  session  of  Congress,  of  the 
effort  to  charter  national  banks.  Again,  in  his 
second  annual  report,  December,  1862,  the  secre 
tary  feelingly  pointed  out  that  government  legal 


278  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

tender  notes  were  being  used  instead  of  specie  to 
form  bank  reserves,  and  were  thus  withdrawn  from 
circulation  and  replaced  by  state  bank  notes ;  and 
he  proposed  in  round  terms  that  "  the  circulation 
furnished  by  the  government  be  issued  by  banking 
associations,  organized  under  a  general  act  of  Con 
gress." 

Several  factors  combined  to  give  the  whole  pro 
ject  greater  strength  than  in  the  previous  year. 
The  delay  of  Congress  had  the  excellent  effect  of 
showing  that  the  weaker  banks  would  not  volun 
tarily  give  up  the  privileges  of  their  state  charters 
and  accept  a  currency  under  national  auspices ; 
but  that  the  cohort  was  broken  by  the  decision 
of  some  of  the  strongest  banks  to  take  federal 
charters  as  well  as  federal  circulation.  Men  like 
President  Walley  of  the  Revere  Bank  of  Boston 
saw  no  objection  to  creating  national  banks  in  the 
great  financial  centres  ;  and  some  of  the  savings 
banks  discovered  the  preference  of  their  depositors 
for  government  notes,  and  were  plagued  by  the 
miscellaneous  state  bank  notes  which  they  had  to 
receive  from  the  regular  banks  of  issue.  Mean 
while  Chase's  renewed  effort  to  get  a  tax  on  state 
bank  notes  gave  some  alarm  to  the  regular  banks ; 
and  his  personal  friends  went  to  various  state 
legislatures  urging  them  to  indorse  his  plan.  At 
length,  on  January  17,  1863,  Chase  secured  from 
Lincoln  a  special  message  asking  Congress  to  pass 
a  national  bank  act ;  and  by  the  middle  of  Febru 
ary,  amateur  lobbyists  were  asking  Chase's  favor 


NATIONAL   BANKS   AND   GOLD   QUESTION    279 

on  the  ground  that  they  were  influencing-  votes  for 
his  scheme.  Finally,  on  February  25,  1863,  the 
National  Bank  Act  was  passed  by  the  narrow 
votes  of  23  to  21  in  the  Senate,  and  78  to  64  in 
the  House. 

The  statute,  however,  did  not  go  to  the  point 
which  Chase  felt  to  be  absolutely  essential.  It 
authorized  the  chartering  of  associations  which 
should  deposit  with  the  Treasury  of  the  United 
States  bonds  of  the  United  States  to  the  amount  of 
not  less  than  one  half  of  their  capital ;  it  permitted 
such  banks  to  receive  notes  to  the  amount  of  ninety 
per  cent  of  the  par  value  of  the  bonds  thus  depos 
ited,  the  total  amount  of  notes  to  be  limited  to 
8300,000,000  ;  and  it  exempted  the  new  banks 
from  taxation,  a  privilege  which  tended  to  make 
them  unpopular  in  the  States.  But  the  act  also 
authorized  the  issuance  of  similar  notes  to  the 
amount  of  eighty  per  cent  of  the  face  value  of 
United  States  bonds  deposited  by  state  corpora 
tions.  The  bill  was  therefore  little  more  than  a 
permission  to  new  institutions  to  enter  into  compe 
tition  with  state  banks,  or  to  existing  state  banks 
to  reorganize  under  a  national  charter. 

A  few  months'  experience  showed  how  little  the 
privileges  were  valued ;  and  the  old  state  bank 
notes  continued  to  increase.  In  vain  did  Chase's 
friends,  political  and  financial,  make  a  personal 
effort  to  found  new  banks  ;  in  vain  did  Jay  Cooke 
give  a  dinner  to  all  the  editors  in  New  York,  in  the 
hope  to  swing  them  into  line.  The  bankers  thought 


280  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

the  old  system  more  profitable ;  and  men  like 
Chase's  friend  George  Opdyke,  who  tried  to  organ 
ize  national  banks,  found  themselves  hampered  and 
chilled  by  political  opposition. 

After  more  than  two  years  of  effort  Chase's 
national  bank  scheme  had  actually  done  little  for 
the  government  and  less  for  the  public.  By  De 
cember,  1863,  thirty-four  of  the  new  banks  had 
been  formed ;  but  their  whole  capital  was  only 
§16,000,000  and  their  notes  actually  issued  were 
not  much  above  83,000,000,  while  $450,000,000 
of  legal  tender  had  been  authorized  and  $447,000,- 
000  had  been  issued.  In  his  third  annual  report, 
in  1863,  Chase  indefinitely  suggested  "  proper 
measures  "  to  induce  the  conversion  of  the  state 
banks  into  national  banks,  though  he  still  ex 
pected  that  large  numbers  of  the  banks  would 
voluntarily  accept  the  change.  A  few  months 
more  of  experience  convinced  him  of  the  con 
trary,  and  early  in  1864  he  proposed  a  prohibitory 
taxation  of  state  banks,  on  the  ground  that  the 
effect  of  the  legal  tender  act  had  been  to  relieve 
them  from  their  charter  obligation  to  redeem  their 
notes  in  specie,  and  that  therefore  they  had  pro 
vided  themselves  with  reserves  of  legal  tenders, 
with  the  result  that  the  irredeemable  notes  of  the 
United  States  were  made  the  basis  of  a  second 
issue  of  paper  money  of  greater  amount  than  the 
paper  reserve  of  the  banks. 

In  March,  1864,  Chase  brought  forward  an 
amendatory  national  bank  bill,  ill-naturedly  chur- 


NATIONAL  BANKS   AND   GOLD   QUESTION    281 

acterized  by  an  opponent  as  made  up  of  a  special 
clause  for  the  benefit  of  the  Bank  of  Commerce  in 
New  York  city,  an  admission  that  the  original  bill 
had  failed,  and  an  appeal  to  adopt  the  principles  of 
the  first  bill.  Even  now  the  secretary  had  not 
thought  it  prudent  to  introduce  a  prohibitory  clause 
against  the  state  institutions,  contenting  himself 
with  a  bill  which  would  make  easier  the  transition 
from  state  to  national  charters ;  but  this  moderate 
measure,  though  it  much  improved  the  original 
bank  act,  failed  mainly  on  the  question  of  the  ex 
emption  of  the  national  banks  from  all  state  taxes  ; 
and  on  April  6,  with  the  assent  of  its  friends,  it 
was  laid  on  the  table.  Chase  exerted  himself  de 
sperately  in  behalf  of  his  favorite  measure.  He 
urged  Horace  Greeley  to  "  say  in  the  ;  Tribune  ' 
that  it  is  as  wrong  in  principle  to  issue  and  cir 
culate  .  .  .  paper  money  without  the  imprint  and 
sanction  of  the  nation  as  it  is  to  issue  and  cir 
culate  a  piece  of  metallic  money."  A  few  days 
later  he  addressed  a  remonstrance  to  Thaddeus 
Stevens,  urging  that  the  "  emission  of  notes  of  cir 
culation  by  private,  municipal,  or  state  authority  is 
as  indefensible  as  the  emission  of  coin  by  the  same 
authority."  To  Greeley  he  had  also  thrown  out 
suggestions  that  the  state  banks  must  be  taxed  "  as 

OS 

much  as  they  can  bear,"  and  he  appealed  also  to 
the  President  to  stand  by  the  prohibition  of  bank 
issues. 

Under  these  influences,  Chase's  bill  was  revived 
and  passed,  June  3, 1864,  including  a  special  clause 


282  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

permitting  the  transfer  of  the  anomalous  Bank  of 
Commerce  of  New  York,  with  its  110,000,000 
of  capital,  into  a  national  bank ;  and  the  taxation 
question  was  stilled  by  allowing  taxes  on  the  shares 
of  a  national  bank  only  in  the  State  where  it  was 
located,  at  the  same  rates  as  for  other  similar  insti 
tutions  ;  while  a  tax  of  about  one  per  cent  was  also 
laid  on  the  national  banks  by  the  national  treasury. 
The  new  system  stimulated  conversions,  and  in 
December,  1864,  there  were  nearly  six  hundred 
national  banks,  with  a  circulation  of  165,000,000. 
^The  final  step  was  taken  long  after  Chase's  resig 
nation,  by  the  passing  of  the  act  of  March  3, 1865, 
which  embodied  the  provision  which  had  been  in 
Chase's  mind  more  than  four  years  earlier,  —  a  tax 
of  ten  per  cent  on  all  state  bank  notes.  Although 
many  of  the  state  institutions  never  accepted  gov 
ernment  charters,  they  were  obliged  to  give  up  their 
issues  ;  and  when  the  tax  took  effect,  the  whole  issue 
of  bank  paper  notes  was  transferred  to  1650  national 
banks,  having  a  circulation  of  over  1400,000,000. 

The  plan  of  a  national  bank  system  is  indubita 
bly  Chase's.  His  was  the  first  definite  conception 
of  a  circulation  under  national  authority,  backed  up 
by  a  prohibitory,  or  at  least  a  discriminating,  tax 
on  other  issues ;  and  in  1862  he  added  the  neces 
sary  feature  that  all  the  banks  of  issue  should  owe 
their  charter  to  the  United  States  and  be  subject 
to  national  supervision.  In  Chase's  mind  a  great 
advantage  of  the  scheme  was  the  demand  thus  cre 
ated  for  government  bonds,  and  the  consequent 


NATIONAL  BANKS  AND  GOLD   QUESTION    283 

relief  of  the  legal  tender  notes ;  and  it  was  not  liis 
fault  that  during  his  administration  little  progress 
was  made  in  the  actual  accepting  of  United  States 
securities  as  a  basis  for  notes.  A  second  consider 
ation  which  Chase  had  always  in  mind  was  the 
national  need  of  a  currency  at  once  uniform  and 
safe.  He  approved  of  all  three  of  the  measures 
which  were  finally  passed  into  law ;  and  much  of 
the  present  organization  of  the  national  banks  is 
due  to  his  invention.  He  had  many  disappoint 
ments  in  dealing  with  Congress  ;  but  his  is  the 
triumph  of  conceiving  a  working  national  bank 
system,  of  showing  its  possibilities,  and  of  putting 
it  into  force. 

Though  a  central  idea  of  the  national  bank  sys 
tem  was  that  the  notes  should  always  be  redeem 
able  in  specie,  Chase  had  the  mortification  to  see 
the  circulating  notes  of  the  government  gradually 
sink.  In  April,  1862,  the  depreciation  was  less 
than  two  per  cent;  but  after  the  failure  of  the 
Peninsular  campaign  greenbacks  fell  to  about 
eighty-seven  cents  on  the  dollar,  and  by  December, 
1862,  to  about  seventy-five  cents. 

This  depreciation  was  a  sore  point  with  Chase, 
and  in  his  reports  he  attempted,  with  but  poor 
success,  to  show,  first  that  it  was  less  than  it  ap 
peared  to  be,  and  second,  that  it  was  not  due  to 
excess  of  government  paper.  "  Gold,"  he  said, 
"had  become  an  article  of  merchandise,  subject 
to  the  ordinary  fluctuations  of  supply  and  demand 
and  to  the  extraordinary  fluctuations  of  mere  spec- 


284:  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

ulation."  In  December,  1862,  the  aggregate  circu 
lation  of  paper,  national  and  state,  was  about  $400,- 
000,000,  which  he  considered  hardly  more  than 
was  necessary,  considering  the  active  condition  of 
business  ;  any  excess  of  currency  he  attributed  to 
the  state  banks.  During  1863,  however,  while  the 
bank  issues  were  about  stationary,  the  government 
increased  its  legal  tenders  and  fractional  notes  by 
nearly  1300,000,000.  Once  more  the  secretary 
could  not  believe  that  "  the  increase  in  price  is 
attributable  wholly  or  in  very  large  measure  to  this 
circulation,"  and  he  still  asserted  that  not  his  notes 
but  those  of  the  banks  were  at  fault. 

Though  Chase  could  argue  that  paper  money  did 
not  fall,  he  could  not  deny  that  "  gold  was  rising," 
and  various  expedients  were  suggested  for  stop 
ping  the  process.  In  November,  1862,  a  plan  was 
sent  him  for  issuing  gold  and  silver  notes,  to  be 
always  redeemable  in  specie,  and  available  for  the 
payment  of  customs  and  other  specie  obligations. 
But  some  bankers  and  public  men  kept  calling 
for  issues  of  government  paper,  even  to  the  extent 
of  replacing  all  the  interest-bearing  bonds ;  and  in 
February,  1863,  owing  to  some  temporary  flurry, 
a  small  premium  was  offered  for  state  bank  notes 
over  United  States  notes,  and  some  creditors  of  the 
government  even  declined  to  receive  those  trea 
sury  notes  which  were  not  specifically  legal  tender. 
The  only  part  of  the  country  where  gold  contin 
ued  to  circulate  was  the  Pacific  coast,  and  through 
his  special  agent  in  San  Francisco  Chase  made 


NATIONAL  BANKS  AND  GOLD   QUESTION    285 

several  unsuccessful  efforts  to  introduce  the  legal 
tenders  there  and  thus  to  drive  out  the  gold.  Gold 
stood  January  31,  1863,  at  160,  and  during  the 
year  various  devices  were  proposed  for  checking  the 
depreciation  of  paper.  One  was  Colfax's  scheme,  — 
tried  and  found  wanting  in  the  Revolution,  —  that 
of  fixing  the  legal  tender  notes  at  a  depreciation  of 
one  third  their  face,  with  the  hope  thus  to  prevent 
their  sinking  lower.  Wilder  schemes  were  sug 
gested,  such  as  the  sending  out  of  treasury  agents 
to  corner  all  floating  gold  and  force  down  its  price 
by  drawing  on  the  reserve  of  the  Treasury  ;  or  to 
tax  the  business  of  gold  speculation. 

In  March,  1862,  the  first  legislation  on  this  sub 
ject  was  obtained  in  the  form  of  a  statute  author 
izing  the  government  to  purchase  gold  with  bonds 
or  notes ;  and  in  March,  1863,  the  secretary  re 
ceived  authority  to  pay  gold  interest  in  advance ; 
and  a  tax  was  laid  on  all  contracts  for  the  purchase 
of  coin  or  bullion.  In  the  spring  of  1864  the  pub 
lic  uneasiness  had  reached  such  a  point  that  the 
secretary  attempted  first  one  and  then  another 
measure  of  repression.  His  first  idea  was  the  sell 
ing  of  treasury  gold,  in  order  to  "  bear  "  the  gold 
market ;  and  in  the  middle  of  April,  he  himself  went 
to  New  York,  where,  by  the  sale  of  111,000,000, 
he  did  succeed  for  a  few  days  in  running  the  pre 
mium  down  from  189  to  165,  though  he  soon  saw 
that  he  could  not  achieve  a  permanent  effect.  Only 
one  means  seemed  left :  through  the  President  and 
through  Congress,  he  pushed  again  his  favorite 


286  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

scheme  for  prohibiting  state  bank  notes,  a  plan 
which  might  have  had  some  effect,  but  found  no 
favor;  at  the  same  time  he  urged  a  statute  for 
punishing  criminally  the  business  of  dealing  in  gold 
futures. 

The  "  Gold  Bill,"  long  delayed  in  the  House, 
did  not  become  law  until  June  17.  It  provided 
penalties  for  effecting  contracts  in  gold  coin  or 
bullion  or  foreign  exchange  for  future  delivery, 
and  also  declared  all  such  contracts  absolutely  void. 
The  result  was  that  in  ten  days,  from  June  20  to 
June  30,  gold  rose  from  about  200  to  250.  It  was 
useless  for  Chase  to  write  to  his  financial  supporters 
in  New  York  that  "  there  is  not  the  slightest  reason 
for  any  rise  in  the  price  of  gold,  either  in  the  finan 
cial  or  military  situation ;  "  and  it  was  equally  fu 
tile  to  draft  a  new  bill  for  the  sale  of  gold  and 
silver  mining  lands,  as  a  means  of  restoring  confi 
dence  in  the  ultimate  payment  of  the  notes.  The 
great  bankers  of  New  York  came  to  Congress  to 
demand  the  repeal  of  the  act,  on  the  ground  that 
it  only  made  it  easier  for  gold  speculators  to  mono 
polize  their  commodity ;  and  they  secured  a  hasty 
repeal  of  the  Gold  Bill  on  July  2,  1864.  The 
almost  simultaneous  resignation  of  Chase  further 
excited  the  gold  speculators,  causing  gold  a  few 
days  later  to  reach  its  highest  figure  of  about  285  ; 
in  August  and  September  it  began  to  decline,  with 
irregularity.  In  February,  1865,  it  fell  to  200 ; 
and  in  March  to  150. 

It  has  often  been  asserted  that  the  real  cause  of 


NATIONAL  BANKS   AND   GOLD   QUESTION    287 

Chase's  withdrawal  from  the  Treasury  was  the 
failure  of  this  measure  and  the  revealed  inability 
of  the  secretary  to  keep  up  the  public  credit ;  but 
there  is  nothing  in  the  private  papers  of  either 
Chase  or  Lincoln  to  show  that  the  President  felt 
his  secretary  responsible  for  the  fall  of  the  legal 
tenders  or  that  Chase  had  lost  the  confidence  of  the 
financiers  of  the  country.  The  premium  on  gold 
was  an  index  of  the  distress  and  uneasiness  of  the 
people  at  the  long  progress  of  the  war;  and  the 
reason  for  the  gradual  recovery  of  the  public  credit, 
after  Chase's  withdrawal,  was  simply  the  conviction 
that  the  military  commanders  then  at  the  head  of 
the  army  would  carry  the  war  to  a  successful  end. 
^ No  doubt  one  reason  why  Chase  offered  his  resig 
nation  was  his  conviction  that  he  was  rendering  so 
great  a  service  to  the  country  that  he  could  not  be 
spared  and  must  be  conciliated.  How  far  did  the 
events  of  his  secretaryship  justify  this  confidence 
in  Chase's  financial  abilities,  held  not  only  by  him 
self  but  by  multitudes  of  his  admirers  throughout 
the  country  ?  The  question  is  not  simply  what  he 
did,  but  what  he  did  under  the  circumstances  and 
conditions  of  the  times.  Chase  took  the  Treasury 
when  the  country  had  for  more  than  forty  years 
known  no  sort  of  a  national  taxation  except  cus 
toms  duties,  when  state  taxes  were  also  very  low, 
and  when  the  private  finance  of  the  country  was 
as  yet  little  organized  in  powerful  associations  or 
syndicates.  He  suffered  from  the  lack  of  ade 
quate  personal  backing  in  Congress,  through  which 


288  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

he  might  have  more  urgently  presented  his  finan 
cial  schemes.  He  suffered  also  from  the  lack  of 
previous  acquaintance  with  the  bankers  and  lend 
ers  of  the  country ;  and  he  was  most  of  all  ham 
pered  by  the  inability  of  all  the  leading  public 
men,  including  himself,  to  foresee  how  long  and 
how  desperate  the  Civil  War  must  be.  He  was 
not  fairly  aroused  until  1863,  and  by  that  time 
the  Treasury  was  too  deep  in  its  legal  tender 
notes  to  free  itself,  either  through  taxation,  or 
through  the  better  market  for  loans  which  resulted 
from  the  victories  of  Vicksburg,  Gettysburg,  and 
Chattanooga,  and  from  the  success  of  the  blockade 
of  the  Southern  ports.  His  loans  were  wisely  and 
shrewdly  managed,  and  would  have  been  more 
successful  had  Congress  carried  out  his  full  na 
tional  bank  system  in  1862  instead  of  1865,  and 
had  he  avoided  the  serious  mistake  of  refusing  to 
make  long  loans  at  par  at  high  rates  of  interest. 
Here  again  the  defective  currency  system  came  in 
to  check  his  best  laid  plans,  for  he  was  justified  in 
the  hope  to  strengthen  his  legal  tenders  by  making 
them  convertible  into  bonds,  and  can  hardly  be 
held  to  account  for  failing  to  foresee  that  the  bonds 
were  weakened  by  the  bringing  of  their  price 
down  to  the  level  of  the  greenbacks. 

The  legal  tenders  came  upon  him  unexpectedly 
and  like  a  flood.  Here  his  fault,  if  there  were 
one,  lay  in  supposing  that  he  could  immediately 
stop  the  state  bank  issues  and  thus  prevent  infla 
tion  ;  and  in  failing  to  see  that  Congress,  and  even 


NATIONAL   BANKS  AND  GOLD   QUESTION    289 

the  secretary,  would  inevitably  fall  back  upon  the 
printing-press  whenever  there  was  a  crisis  in  the 
Treasury.  Having  once  yielded  to  the  pressure 
of  many  of  his  financial  advisers,  as  well  as  to 
the  popular  feeling  reflected  in  Congress,  Chase 
could  never  recover  his  ground,  and  later  said  that 
the  only  thing  he  regretted  in  his  treasury  experi 
ence  was  his  giving  way  on  that  point.  As  for  the 
national  banks,  Chase,  with  all  his  energy,  could 
succeed  only  in  laying  the  foundations  upon  which 
his  successors  built ;  but  he  laid  them  deeply  and 
firmly. 

^j  The  errors  in  Chase's  finance  were,  then,  due 
partly  to  inexperience,  partly  to  want  of  apprehen 
sion  of  the  tremendous  task  thrust  upon  him,  and 
partly  to  the  hurry  and  rush  of  a  desperate  time. 
His  positive  measures  were  on  the  .whole  success 
ful,  and  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  he  had  two 
qualities  which  were  more  valuable  to  the  country 
and  the  Treasury  than  financial  genius :  he  had 
indomitable  persistence,  and  he  had  the  honesty 
which  needed  not  his  own  too  frequent  approval. 
However  much  he  groaned  over  the  difficulties  of 
his  place,  he  met  those  difficulties  firmly  day  by 
day,  and  he  did  not  deceive  or  cajole.  Nor  did 
he  protect  dishonest  men :  his  immediate  subordi 
nates  were  trustworthy  and  efficient,  and  justified 
his  confidence ;  indeed,  the  average  character  of 
the  treasury  official  was  higher  than  in  any  other 
department  of  the  public  service  except  perhaps 
the  Navy.  Chase  deserves  to  be  called  a  great  Sec 
retary  of  the  Treasury. 


CHAPTER  XII 

CHASE   AND   LINCOLN 

THE  relations  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
with  the  President  during  the  Civil  War  have  been 
much  discussed  and  much  misunderstood.  Though 
each  at  times  found  his  patience  sorely  tried  by 
the  other,  the  two  men  had  always  a  genuine  re 
spect  and  esteem  for  each  other,  and  they  were 
perhaps  more  nearly  in  accord  in  their  judgment 
on  political  questions  than  wrere  any  others  in  the 
cabinet  council. 

It  was  a  misfortune  that  the  two  men  had  known 
each  other  but  little  before  their  association  in  the 
same  administration.  When  Chase  came  to  Wash 
ington,  he  expected  a  more  intimate  friendship 
with  the  President  than  he  ever  gained ;  in  after 
years  he  felt  that  perhaps  he  had  made  a  mistake  in 
choosing  a  house  more  than  a  mile  from  the  White 
House ;  for  Seward,  he  thought,  lived  so  near  by 
that  he  had  an  opportunity  to  know  Lincoln  in  an 
informal  good  fellowship  which  was  denied  to  him. 
But  the  real  cause  that  kept  Lincoln  and  Chase 
from  coming  close  together  lay  much  deeper  than 
a  separation  by  a  few  furlongs.  While  kindly, 
genial,  and  agreeable  among  his  friends,  Chase  had 


CHASE   AND   LINCOLN  291 

the  misfortune  to  lack  a  sense  of  humor ;  and  a 
Puritan  conception  of  the  gravity  and  seriousness 
of  his  work  kept  him  from  really  understanding 
the  easier  and  less  strenuous  attitude  of  the  born 
Kentuckian.  Chase  was  also  apt  to  feel  that  his 
good  counsels  were  slighted  or  disregarded,  and  he 
was  touchy  about  the  conduct  of  his  office ;  while 
Lincoln  was  willing  to  go  great  lengths  in  order 
to  preserve  the  peace  and  keep  the  machinery  of 
government  moving. 

In  the  duties  of  his  office  Chase  experienced 
from  Lincoln  such  consideration  and  such  willing 
ness  to  leave  department  matters  to  his  secretary's 
judgment  as  fall  to  the  lot  of  few  cabinet  officers. 
Lincoln  was  satisfied  to  throw  the  responsibility 
of  the  Treasury  upon  his  secretary's  shoulders, 
though  he  sometimes  helped  him  out  by  a  special 
message  to  Congress.  In  the  great  questions  of 
the  Civil  War,  the  two  men  had  the  same  high 
sense  of  their  duty  to  preserve  the  country  from 
dissolution  and  the  people  from  injustice,  but  by 
their  natural  habits  of  thought  they  felt  in  very 
different  proportions  an  interest  in  the  main  issues  ; 
for  instance,  Lincoln  had  a  much  stronger  sense 
of  the  political  and  military  necessity  of  placating 
the  border  States  than  was  possible  to  the  Ohio 
anti-slavery  man.  On  the  question  of  slavery  also 
the  two  men  had  different  points  of  view,  for 
Chase  hoped  and  expected  that  slavery  would 
receive  its  death-blow,  while  Lincoln  a  few  days 
before  his  Emancipation  Proclamation  announced 


292  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

that  he  was  willing  to  save  the  Union  without  free 
ing  a  slave.  The  hostility  of  the  two  men  to  the 
institution  itself  was  very  similar ;  but  in  Chase's 
mind  the  war  was  a  means  to  emancipation,  in  Lin 
coln's  mind  emancipation  was  a  means  to  success 
ful  war.  In  political  matters  also  the  two  men 
never  pulled  together.  Chase  sought  to  build  up 
the  Republican  party  because  he  thought  it  the 
safeguard  of  freedom  ;  Lincoln  hoped  to  get  the 
support  of  the  people  in  order  that  he  might  re 
store  the  Union.  To  sum  up  the  whole  matter  in 
a  sentence,  union  and  freedom  were  dear  to  both 
men,  but  to  Chase  freedom  was  the  necessary  foun 
dation  of  union,  and  to  Lincoln  union  was  the 
prerequisite  of  freedom. 

Considering  the  free  scope  which  Chase  had  in 
his  own  department,  it  must  have  been  trying  to 
the  President  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
should  so  often  attempt  to  put  pressure  upon  him 
in  military  matters.  Chase  reasoned  that  he  was 
witness  to  a  military  expenditure  which  he  could 
not  control,  and  yet  which  he  must  meet,  at  the 
risk  of  his  reputation  as  a  financier,  and  even  at 
the  peril  of  the  national  credit.  He  found  it  pos 
sible  to  concentrate  the  capital  of  the  country  be 
hind  him  and  to  impress  upon  Congress  the  need 
of  financial  vigor,  and  hence  he  thought  that  simi 
lar  energy  in  other  departments  would  bring  the 
war  to  a  speedy  end.  Maunsell  Field,  one  of 
Chase's  subordinates  in  the  treasury,  says  that  on 
one  occasion  Chase  was  so  wrought  up  by  the  reports 


CHASE   AND   LINCOLN  293 

of  scandalous  waste  in  the  quartermaster's  depart 
ment  that  he  personally  upbraided  Stanton.  From 
time  to  time  his  letters  and  his  diary  express  wrath 
and  grief  over  unnecessary  expenditure,  which 
seemed  to  produce  no  military  advantage,  in  such 
terms  as  this  entry  in  his  diary  for  September, 
1862 :  "  Warrants  to-day  enormous,  over  $4,000,- 
000,  and  unpaid  requisitions  still  accumulating  — 
now  over  140,000,000.  Where  will  this  end?" 
All  the  world  now  knows  that  Chase  was  right  in 
feeling  that  the  men  and  money  were  not  so 
applied  as  to  get  the  greatest  result ;  his  error  was 
in  failing  to  realize  the  political  difficulty  of  mana 
ging  so  complex  a  machinery  as  the  volunteer  army. 
Another  cause  of  friction  with  the  President  was 
a  different  conception  of  the  functions  of  heads 
of  departments.  From  time  to  time  Chase  com 
plained  in  his  private  diary  and  in  conversations 
and  letters  that  there  was  no  cabinet.  On  one 
occasion  he  "  told  Weed  that  we  must  have  de 
cided  action  and  that  he  [Weed]  could  insure 
it ;  was  going  to  meeting  of  heads  of  departments, 
not  to  cabinet."  A  few  days  later  he  wrote  to 
Greeley :  "  It  seems  to  me  that  in  this  government 
the  President  and  his  cabinet  ought  to  be  well 
advised  of  all  matters  vital  to  the  military  and 
civil  administration ;  but  each  one  of  us,  to  use  a 
presidential  expression,  turns  his  own  machine, 
with  almost  no  comparison  of  views  or  consultation 
of  any  kind.  It  seems  to  me  all  wrong  and  I  have 
tried  very  hard  to  have  it  otherwise  —  unavail- 


294  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

ingly."  About  the  same  time  he  complained  to 
Senator  John  Sherman  of  the  lack  of  discussion  on 
the  campaign.  "  We  have  as  little  to  do  with  it 
as  if  we  were  heads  of  factories,  supplying  shoes  or 
clothing.  No  regular  and  systematic  reports  of 
what  is  done  are  made,  I  believe,  even  to  the 
President ;  certainly  none  are  made  to  the  cabi 
net."  That  there  ought  to  have  been  some  sort  of 
clearing-house  in  which  the  several  heads  of  de 
partments  might  understand  each  other's  purposes 
is  undeniable,  but  Chase  appears  to  have  reached 
out  farther :  even  when  the  cabinet  was  summoned 
to  discuss  great  military  crises  he  felt  aggrieved 
if  the  President  went  on  his  way,  disregarding  the 
plentiful  good  advice  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Trea 
sury. 

Occasionally  Chase  tried  giving  unasked  coun 
sel.  In  June,  1862,  when  McClellan  was  engaged 
in  the  Peninsula,  Chase  strongly  urged  the  Presi 
dent  to  direct  a  column  of  troops  to  Charlottes- 
ville,  and  was  much  pained  that  his  judgment  was 
not  followed.  A  little  later  he  was  writing  to 
General  Pope  and  General  Butler  on  the  slavery 
question,  and  was  trying  to  impress  the  President 
with  the  necessity  of  a  campaign  against  Vicks- 
burg.  In  August,  1862,  he  joined  Seward  in  an 
attempt  to  coerce  the  President  into  dismissing 
McClellan  from  command  of  the  troops  before 
Washington ;  the  two  got  Bates  and  Smith  to  join 
them  in  a  protest,  and  secured  Stanton's  neutrality. 
Lincoln  expressed  his  distress  to  "find  himself 


CHASE  AND   LINCOLN  295 

differing  on  such  a  point  from  the  Secretary  of 
War  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  ;  that  he 
would  gladly  resign  his  place,  but  he  could  not 
see  who  could  do  the  work  wanted  so  well  as 
McClellan." 

Chase's  military  interest  was  not  confined  to  the 
cabinet ;  his  active  correspondence  with  army  offi 
cers  in  the  field,  and  his  exchange  of  views  with 
them  about  the  military  policy  of  the  President, 
have  been  brought  out  clearly  by  letters  printed 
by  Warden,  Schuckers,  and  Hay  and  Nicolay ; 
which  might  be  enlarged  from  the  files  of  his  cor 
respondence.  Upon  these  letters,  biographers  of 
Lincoln  have  even  founded  an  indictment  against 
Chase,  as  a  man  trying  to  undermine  his  superiors 
and  counseling  disobedience  to  the  President's 
orders. 

From  December,  1861,  to  the  final  failure  of  the 
campaign  of  1862,  Chase  did  attempt  to  infuse 
vigor  into  the  commanders  by  direct  incentive. 
In  December,  1861,  he  asked  McClellan  to  confer 
with  him,  and  the  next  day  he  sent  a  direct  com 
munication  to  the  general  asking  him  to  protect 
the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad.  In  1862  he 
began  a  correspondence  with  Colonel  James  A. 
Garfield,  with  whom  he  maintained  intimate  rela 
tions  throughout  the  war.  General  Morgan  asked 
him  for  regular  troops  ;  General  Shields  wanted 
him  to  confer  in  his  behalf  with  the  President ;  he 
was  in  direct  and  confidential  correspondence  with 
General  Butler  in  New  Orleans ;  General  Banks 


296  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

sent  him  a  message  saying  that  he  should  like  to 
join  forces  with  Chase,  the  two  to  be  "  head  and 
arm ; "  to  General  McDowell,  in  March,  1862,  he 
sent  an  article  from  the  "  Cincinnati  Commercial  " 
criticising  McClellan,  who  was  then  superior  in 
rank  to  McDowell ;  to  Colonel  Key  he  expressed 
his  reasons  for  approving  Lincoln's  orders  to 
McDowell  before  McClellan's  campaign  of  1862. 
When  his  confidence  in  McClellan  at  last  broke 
down,  he  wrote  again  to  McDowell,  saying :  "  With 
50,000  men  and  you  for  a  general  I  would  under 
take  to  go  from  Fortress  Monroe  to  Richmond  in 
two  days."  A  note  to  Greeley  on  May  21,  1862, 
sums  up  his  opinion  in  a  few  words  :  "  McClellan 
is  a  dear  luxury  —  fifty  days  —  fifty  miles  —  fifty 
millions  of  dollars  —  easy  arithmetic,  but  not  satis 
factory.  If  one  could  have  some  faith  in  his  com 
petency  in  battle,  should  his  army  ever  fight  one,  if 
not  in  his  competency  for  movement,  it  would  be  a 
comfort." 

After  the  failure  of  the  Peninsular  campaign, 
Chase  was  very  anxious  to  be  rid  of  McClellan. 
Nevertheless  when  a  few  days  later  he  called  on 
General  Halleck  he  "  judged  it  prudent  not  to  say 
much  of  the  war."  For  McDowell  and  for  Pope 
,,he  had  a  special  sympathy,  and  he  did  what  he 
could  to  make  their  retiring  easier.  On  Septem 
ber  23,  1862,  he  called  on  Hooker,  and  gave 
that  general  to  understand  that  he  had  favored 
his  appointment  immediately  after  the  Peninsular 
campaign.  As  new  officers  came  forward  in  1862 


CHASE   AND   LINCOLN  297 

and  1863,  Chase  made  it  a  point  to  get  into  re 
lations  with  them.  He  congratulated  Rousseau ; 
he  wrote  to  Kosecrans,  regretting  that  his  only 
connection  with  the  general's  fortune  had  been  an 
effective  influence  in  obtaining  his  brigadiership ; 
and  urging  him  to  seize  East  Tennessee.  Just  be 
fore  the  battle  of  Gettysburg  he  wrote  to  the  Presi 
dent,  urging  that  Hooker  should  not  be  relieved. 
He  also  wrote  a  personal  letter  to  Grant,  intimating 
that  the  treasury  agents  had  done  the  general  a 
service  by  favorable  reports  upon  his  campaigns. 
No  one  can  blame  a  man,  who  had  such  opportuni 
ties  of  seeing  actual  difficulties,  for  suggesting  and 
remonstrating.  The  reprehensible  thing  in  Chase's 
system  was  that  he  entered  into  relations  with 
military  men  and  gave  them  advice  which  did  not 
come  from  the  consent  of  the  other  members  of 
the  cabinet  or  from  an  understanding  with  the 
President.  Hence  he  could  never  escape  the  sus 
picion  that  he  was  trying  to  make  friends  who 
would  be  useful  to  him  in  politics. 

Secretary  Chase  did  not  mean  to  reverse,  but 
rather  to  supplement,  the  direct  orders  of  the  Pres 
ident  and  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  —  he  meant  to 
enforce  energy  and  not  to  divide  counsels.  He 
had  a  natural  breadth  and  definiteness  of  view, 
and  his  military  instincts  though  untrained  were 
good.  Unfortunately,  when  things  went  wrong  he 
could  not  refrain  from  expressing  his  disapproba 
tion,  even  to  the  point  of  direct  criticism  on  the 
President.  For  instance,  on  May  30,  18G1,  he 


298  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

protested  against  a  proposition  to  call  out  more 
three-months  men,  complaining  that  in  the  cabinet 
meeting  "  the  President  did  not  give  me  a  chance 
to  express  my  views."  He  also  advocated  the 
seizure  and  fortification  of  Manassas  two  months 
before  the  battle  of  Bull  Run ;  but,  said  he,  "  I 
have  not  been  able  to  make  our  friends  in  the 
administration  see  as  I  have  seen ;  when,  there 
fore,  I  am  overruled,  I  have  quietly  submitted." 

These  discussions  were  of  course  within  the  cir 
cle  of  the  administration,  but  at  various  times 
Chase  wrote  letters  to  other  persons  —  who  doubt 
less  circulated  them  —  in  which  he  expressed  his 
distrust  of  the  President.  "  We  have  not  accom 
plished  what  we  ought  to  have  accomplished,"  he 
writes,  September  8,  1862 :  "  we  have  put  small 
forces  where  large  forces  were  needed,  and  have 
failed  to  improve  advantages  and  successes  when 
obtained."  September  12  he  notes  :  "  Expenses  are 
enormous,  increasing  instead  of  diminishing ;  and 
the  ill  success  in  the  field  has  so  affected  govern 
ment  stocks  that  it  is  impossible  to  obtain  money 
except  on  temporary  deposit.  .  .  .  It  is  a  bad  state 
of  things ;  but  neither  the  President,  his  council 
ors,  nor  his  commanding  generals  seem  to  care. 
They  rush  on  from  expense  to  expense,  and  from 
defeat  to  defeat,  heedless  of  the  abyss  of  bank 
ruptcy  and  ruin  which  yawns  before  us.  May  God 
open  the  eyes  of  those  who  control  us  before  it  is 
too  late  !  " 

To  John    Sherman   he   wrote,    September    20, 


CHASE  AND  LINCOLN  299 

1862;  "It  is  painful,  however,  to  hear  complaints 
of  remissness,  delays,  discords,  dangers,  and  to 
feel  that  there  must  be  ground  for  such  complaints, 
and  to  know  that  one  has  no  power  to  remedy  the 
evils,  and  yet  is  thought  to  have."  And  on  the 
same  day  to  John  Owen :  "  Oh  !  that  the  Presi 
dent  and  those  who  control  military  movements 
may  see  the  necessity  of  following  up  vigorously 
and  indefatigably  the  success  now  achieved."  To 
an  intimate  friend  he  wrote,  four  days  later,  that 
if  his  advice  had  been  taken  the  war  would  have 
been  already  finished.  "  What  could  I  do  beyond 
what  I  have  done,"  he  added,  "  except  resign  and 
come  home  ?  "  And  a  few  weeks  later  he  was  sure 
that,  if  McClellan  had  conferred  with  him,  the 
rebellion  would  have  been  ended  before  that  time. 
To  another  correspondent  he  complains :  "  The 
President,  from  the  purest  motives,  committed  the 
management  of  the  war  almost  exclusively  to  his 
political  opponents ;  it  is  sad  to  think  of  the  delay 
and  anxiety  which  have  marked  the  past,  but  I  am 
confident  that  it  will  not  characterize  the  future." 

From  these  examples  it  is  evident  that  Chase 
expostulated  and  sometimes  wrangled  with  the 
President  about  military  matters,  and  that  he 
many  times  expressed  his  dissatisfaction  to  his 
friends.  This  is  the  greatest  weakness  in  his  polit 
ical  life,  and  must  be  contrasted  with  the  Presi 
dent's  own  forbearance  and  his  care  not  to  throw 
the  responsibility  of  the  national  defense  upon 
other  people.  The  explanation  is  that  Chase 


300  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

understood  neither  the  President's  difficulties  nor 
the  temperament  of  the  people,  nor  the  efficiency 
of  Secretary  Stanton,  a  man  as  vigorous  and  de 
termined  as  Chase  himself.  What  the  country 
really  needed  was  not  simply  commanders  of  great 
military  genius,  but  commanders  of  experience  in 
handling  armies,  and  of  reputation  such  as  would 
gain  the  confidence  of  the  country;  and  nothing 
could  be  more  certain  than  that  a  military  admin 
istration  such  as  Chase  desired  —  a  coalition  of  cab 
inet  officers  with  a  few  military  men  —  would  have 
been  far  less  likely  to  discover  and  support  such 
commanders  than  was  the  administration  of  a 
single  person. 

Another  cause  of  disagreement  between  Lincoln 
and  Chase  was  the  latter's  uneasiness  at  the  appli 
cation  of  military  government  to  regions  where  no 
war  was  going  on.  Chase  disapproved  of  the  mili 
tary  court-martial  of  Yallandigham  in  1862,  on 
which  the  Supreme  Court  later  passed  an  unfavor 
able  judgment;  "not,"  he  said,  "  that  I  am  averse 
to  arrests  for  sufficient  cause  and  in  the  proper  time 
and  place,  .  .  .  but  I  think  the  exercise  of  such 
power  ought  to  be  reserved  for  grave  and  clear 
occasions."  In  cabinet  discussions  of  the  habeas 
corpus,  Chase  stood  out  for  the  right  of  state 
courts  to  issue  the  writ  in  order  to  discharge  per 
sons  wrongfully  detained  as  enlisted  men;  but 
after  consideration  the  secretary  admitted  that  the 
President  had  the  constitutional  power  to  suspend 
the  writ  as  to  both  state  and  federal  judges,  with- 


CHASE  AND  LINCOLN  301 

out  authority  of  Congress,  though  he  insisted  that 
the  authority  of  the  President  was  based  distinctly 
on  the  habeas  corpus  clause  of  the  Constitution  (to 
some  degree  defined  by  statutes)  and  not  upon  any 
general  military  power.  With  the  military  trials 
of  civilians  Chase  had  little  sympathy :  and  later 
as  chief  justice  he  had  the  opportunity  for  assert 
ing  the  supremacy  of  the  judiciary  over  military 
government  outside  the  theatre  of  war. 

On  the  whole,  Chase's  interference  in  military 
matters  did  not  lead  to  friction  in  the  cabinet,  both 
because  he  was  disregarded  and  because  he  kept 
on  good  terms  alike  with  the  too  facile  Cameron 
and  with  the  testy  and  violent  Stanton.  When 
Cameron  was  compelled  to  resign,  Chase  asked  and 
secured  from  the  President  a  letter  of  polite  regret. 
Of  Stanton  Chase  wrote,  eight  years  later :  "  I  do 
not  know  that  we  ever  agreed  fully  either  as  to 
theory  or  practice  in  respect  to  the  rights  of  colored 
citizens  or  as  to  the  duties  of  the  government  and 
the  nation  to  them,  .  .  .  though  he  came  into  the 
cabinet  adopting  practical  principles  more  akin  to 
mine,  especially  on  the  subject  of  enlisting  colored 
men  as  soldiers."  The  two  men  respected  each 
other's  energy,  and  Chase  rebuked  his  correspond 
ents  for  holding  Stanton  responsible  for  failures 
in  the  field. 

With  Seward,  Chase's  relations  were  peculiar. 
Coming  in  with  a  strong  sense  of  rivalry,  each  man 
hoping  and  perhaps  expecting  to  obtain  the  ascend 
ency  over  the  President,  the  two  secretaries  found 


302  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

it  difficult  to  harmonize.  They  could  cooperate  in 
the  appointment  of  Stanton,  and  during  1862  their 
relations  were  more  cordial.  Chase  wrote  to  Sew- 
ard  frankly  and  confidentially,  asking  that  Came 
ron  be  allowed  to  come  home  from  Russia,  and  to 
mutual  friends  he  expressed  his  "  wishes  for  har 
mony."  In  September,  1862,  a  strong  current 
began  to  set  against  Seward,  because  he  was  sup 
posed  to  be  resisting  the  radical  views  on  the  sla 
very  question  ;  Thurlow  Weed  even  came  to  Chase 
with  stories  of  dissatisfaction  in  New  York  toward 
Seward.  If  this  were  a  trap,  Chase  avoided  it,  but 
he  seemed  struck  by  Weed's  suggestion  that  he 
and  Seward  "  must  agree  on  a  definite  line,  espe 
cially  on  the  slavery  question,  which  we  must  recom 
mend  to  the  President."  Matters  came  to  a  head 
on  December  17,  1862,  when  a  caucus  of  the  Re 
publican  senators  agreed,  with  one  dissentient,  that 
the  President  must  "  reconstruct  his  cabinet." 

In  this  crisis  Chase  and  Seward  came  to  an  un 
derstanding  by  which  each  sent  in  his  resignation. 
Major  D wight  Bannister,  in  reminiscences  written 
many  years  later,  records  Chase's  explanation  to  a 
congressman  as  follows :  "  He  told  the  gentleman 
that  he  resigned  from  the  cabinet  much  through 
disgust  at  Mr.  Lincoln's  weakening  and  consenting 
that,  at  the  dictation  and  demand  of  the  disaffected 
senators,  he  should  be  willing  to  let  his  chief  friend 
in  the  cabinet  be  driven  out.  That  six  months 
after  the  whole  country  had  lost  all  confidence  in 
the  ability  or  fitness  of  General  McClellan,  Mr. 


i  CHASE  AND   LINCOLN  303 

Seward  almost  solely  and  alone  of  the  cabinet  offi 
cers  had  supported  the  President  in  still  retaining 
McClellan  in  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Poto 
mac  ;  and  now,  to  let  him  be  driven  out  simply  be 
cause  he  has  faithfully  stood  by  him  in  his  policy 
seems  to  me  almost  pusillanimous.  And,  besides, 
Seward  is  the  only  distinctive  and  original  anti-sla 
very  man  besides  myself  in  the  cabinet ;  and  when 
he  is  allowed  to  go  out,  I  stand  as  such  almost  soli 
tary  and  alone.  There  is  no  cabinet ;  there  are 
certain  heads  of  departments,  but  no  real  cabinet. 
I  tell  you  I  am  sick  of  it  and  I  am  glad  to  get  out 
of  it." 

Chase's  three  letters  written  to  Lincoln  on  the 
three  successive  days  of  the  crisis  clearly  show 
that  he  expected  that  more  attention  would  thence 
forward  be  paid  to  his  own  opinions,  and  those  of 
his  colleagues.  In  the  first  letter,  December  20,  he 
resigned  without  any  suggestion  of  reasons.  When 
the  President  at  once  replied  to  Seward  and  Chase 
that  the  public  interest  did  not  allow  him  to  accept 
their  resignations,  Seward  promptly  and  cheerfully 
resumed  his  office,  but  Chase  still  held  out  on  the 
ground  that,  "  being  once  honorably  out  of  the  Cab 
inet,  no  important  public  interest  now  requires  my 
return  to  it."  On  December  22  he  sent  a  second 
letter  to  the  President  to  the  effect  that  he  had 
been  led  "  to  the  conclusion  that  I  ought  in  this 
matter  to  conform  my  action  to  your  judgment  and 
wishes  ; "  but  he  could  not  forbear  sending  also  a 
third  letter  prepared  two  days  beforehand,  setting 


'304  SALMON   PORTLAND  CHASE 

forth  that,  "  I  could  not,  if  I  would,  conceal  from 
myself  that  recent  events  have  too  rudely  jostled 
the  unity  of  your  Cabinet,  and  disclosed  an  opinion 
too  deeply  seated  and  too  generally  received  in 
Congress  and  in  the  country,  to  be  disregarded, 
that  the  concord  in  judgment  and  action,  essen 
tial  for  successful  administration,  does  not  prevail 
among  its  members." 

Although  it  cannot  be  actually  proven,  it  is  prob 
able  that  Chase  had  expected  Seward  to  join  him 
in  making  some  definite  terms  with  the  President. 
If  it  be  so,  the  scheme  was  broken  up  by  Se ward's 
eagerness  to  have  the  President's  protection,  and 
Lincoln  came  out  of  the  controversy  with  much 
greater  prestige  than  either  of  the  two  secretaries. 
For  a  few  days  there  were  threats  of  military  con 
spiracies  to  depose  both  the  President  and  cabinet, 
but  the  issuance  of  the  final  Proclamation  of  Eman 
cipation  swept  the  affair  out  of  sight.  On  Janu 
ary  26, 1863,  Chase  wrote  to  Greeley :  "  Let  us  get 
the  measures  necessary  to  the  success  of  any  Re 
publican  administration  adopted,  and  then  let  the 
cabinet  be  reconstructed  if  you  will.  For  one  I 
am  quite  willing  to  be  reconstructed." 

Two  months  later,  however,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  could  not  forbear  again  measuring  his 
powers  against  those  of  the  President.  The  issue 
was  the  rejection  by  the  Senate  of  the  nomination 
of  Mark  Howard  to  be  the  collector  of  internal 
revenue  in  Connecticut.  Chase  believed  that  the 
rebuff  was  due  to  the  personal  influence  of  Senator 


CHASE  AND  LINCOLN  305 

Dixon,  and  he  demanded  categorically  that  no  per 
son  proposed  by  Dixon  should  be  appointed,  and 
that  he  himself  should  nominate  to  the  vacancy. 
When  the  President  decided  to  select  a  name  on 
Dixon's  list,  Chase  protested  ;  and  though  the  diffi 
culty  was  removed  by  personal  conference  between 
Dixon  and  Chase,  the  secretary  could  not  forbear 
laying  down  a  new  ultimatum  :  "  To  secure  fit  men 
for  responsible  place,  without  admitting  the  rights 
of  senators  or  representatives  to  control  appoint 
ments,  for  which  the  President  and  the  Secretary, 
as  his  presumed  adviser,  must  be  responsible.  Un 
less  these  points  can  be  practically  established,  I 
feel  that  I  can  not  be  useful  to  you  or  the  country 
in  my  present  position."  As  the  President  still 
stood  by  the  prerogatives  of  his  office,  Chase  pre 
pared  a  note  of  resignation,  but  the  dangerous 
paper  was  withdrawn,  and  a  second  time  the  sec 
retary  reassumed  his  functions. 

Three  months  later,  in  May,  1863,  trouble  came 
up  again  over  one  of  Chase's  subordinates.  One 
of  the  early  appointments  made  by  the  President, 
at  Chase's  express  desire,  was  that  of  Victor  Smith 
of  Cincinnati  to  be  collector  of  Puget  Sound. 
Smith  had  been  a  personal  friend  of  Chase,  and 
went  away  owing  him  money,  perhaps  remnants  of 
old  transactions,  perhaps  sums  borrowed  in  order 
to  pay  his  passage  to  his  new  post  of  duty.  Smith 
went  out  to  his  office  full  of  zeal,  and  wrote  fre 
quent  and  confidential  letters  to  the  secretary. 
He  very  soon  became  engaged  in  land  speculations 


306  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

and  made  strenuous  efforts  to  have  the  Custom 
House  removed  to  a  little  place  which  he  was  try 
ing  to  build  up.  By  temperament  and  reputation 
he  was  not  fitted  for  the  important  post  given  to 
him,  and  eventually  charges  of  corruption  were 
brought  against  him,  and  strong  pressure  against 
him  was  put  upon  the  President  by  members  of 
Congress  from  the  Pacific  coast.  For  the  charges 
there  seems  to  have  been  no  sufficient  ground,  but 
Lincoln  notified  Chase  that  his  mind  was  made  up 
to  remove  Smith  on  the  ground  that "  the  degree  of 
dissatisfaction  with  him  there  is  too  great  for  him 
to  be  retained."  Finally,  in  Chase's  absence  the 
President  did  remove  him,  whereupon  Chase  wrote 
a  solemn  letter  claiming  the  right  to  be  consulted 
on  the  appointment  of  persons  "  for  whose  action  I 
must  be  largely  responsible."  He  protested  against 
the  appointment  of  the  successor  of  Smith,  and 
ended  with  saying :  "  If  you  find  anything  in  my 
views  to  which  your  own  sense  of  duty  will  not  per 
mit  you  to  assent,  I  will  unhesitatingly  relieve  you 
from  all  embarrassment,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned, 
by  tendering  you  my  resignation."  The  Presi 
dent  felt  the  matter  to  be  so  serious  that  he  went 
himself  to  Chase's  house ;  as  he  told  a  friend  after 
wards  :  "  I  went  directly  up  to  him  with  the  resig 
nation  in  my  hand,  and,  putting  my  arm  around 
his  neck,  said  to  him,  '  Chase,  here  is  a  paper  with 
which  I  wish  to  have  nothing  to  do ;  take  it  back 
and  be  reasonable.'  I  told  him  that  I  could  n't 
replace  the  person  whom  I  had  removed  —  that 


CHASE   AND   LINCOLN  307 

was  impossible  —  but  that  I  would  appoint  any  one 
else  whom  he  should  select  for  the  place.  It  was 
difficult  to  bring  him  to  terms  ;  I  had  to  plead  with 
him  a  long  time,  but  I  finally  succeeded,  and  heard 
nothing  more  of  that  resignation."  Smith  took  the 
matter  better  than  did  his  superior,  and  accepted 
his  removal  with  good  nature ;  but  the  continued 
strain  of  these  differences  between  the  President 
and  secretary  was  beginning  to  tell  upon  the  good 
humor  of  both,  and  the  question  of  the  nomination 
of  1864  now  came  in  to  sow  still  greater  dissensions. 
To  understand  the  point  of  view  of  Secretary 
Chase  in  the  preliminary  canvass  of  1863  and  1864, 
we  must  remember  that  to  his  mind  and  that  of 
most  of  the.  old  Republicans  Mr.  Lincoln  was  an 
accidental  President.  Congress  pulled  against  him, 
and  Seward,  Stanton,  and  Chase,  each  in  his  own 
way,  tested  the  President's  mastery.  Stanton's 
practice  was  occasionally  to  defy  the  President  in 
minor  matters  by  refusing  to  carry  out  his  orders, 
or  by  returning  a  commission  with  the  curt  in 
dorsement  :  "  The  President  may  get  another  Sec 
retary  of  War,  but  this  Secretary  of  War  will  not 
sign  that  paper."  Aware  of  Stanton's  infirmity  of 
temper,  and  sincerely  prizing  his  administrative 
power  and  his  undeniable  abilities  and  patriotism, 
the  President  gave  way  in  many  small  matters,  but 
was  tenacious  on  questions  of  principle.  Seward 
yielded  easily  in  details,  but  occasionally  ventured 
to  take  upon  himself  a  responsibility  which  be 
longed  to  the  President,  as  for  instance  in  his 


308  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

promise  to  the  British  ambassador  that  the  mails 
of  prizes  should  be  sent  to  England  unbroken,  a 
promise  which  enraged  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy. 
Chase's  habit  was  that  of  direct  obedience  where 
the  President  gave  a  disagreeable  order,  accom 
panied,  in  what  he  thought  critical  affairs,  by  a 
threat  of  resignation.  His  method  had  its  founda 
tion  in  the  assurances  of  Chase's  correspondents 
all  over  the  country  that  he  was  the  mainstay  of 
the  administration.  He  could  not  help  knowing 
that  his  was  the  most  effective  and  successful  of 
the  great  departments  of  the  government,  and  his 
position  as  a  leader  in  anti-slavery  movements  gave 
him  weight  in  the  cabinet.  However  wearisome  it 
may  have  been  for  the  President  to  be  called  on 
so  often  to  dispel  the  clouds  in  his  secretary's 
mind,  he  had  at  least  the  assurance  that  Chase 
would  not  disregard  his  directions,  nor  usurp  pre 
sidential  powers. 

The  war  was  but  a  part  of  the  President's  anx 
ieties.  He  understood  that  he  was  dependent  on 
the  support  of  a  majority  in  Congress,  and  he  felt 
that  upon  him  fell  the  duty  of  maintaining  such 
influence  in  the  country  at  large  as  would  give  him 
the  support  of  state  governors  and  administrations, 
and  would  keep  Congress  in  line.  This  political 
function  was  always  before  his  mind;  and  when 
the  question  of  the  Republican  nomination  of  1864 
arose,  there  was  a  rivalry  between  him  and  Chase 
which  accentuated  minor  differences.  Chase,  too, 
felt  the  keenest  interest  in  keeping  up  the  Repub- 


CHASE   AND   LINCOLN  309 

lican  majority  in  Congress  ;  but  one  of  the  effects, 
foreseen  but  inevitable,  of  the  first  proclamation 
of  emancipation  was  an  increase  of  the  Democratic 
vote  in  Ohio  and  Indiana,  and  the  consequent 
election  of  many  Democratic  members  of  Congress  ; 
and  Chase's  influence  could  not  stay  the  tide. 

From  the  early  part  of  1862  Chase  had  also  in 
mind  the  presidential  nomination  of  1864  ;  but  for 
some  time  his  only  share  in  the  agitation  was  to 
try  to  heal  dissensions  in  his  own  party,  and  espe 
cially  to  come  into  pleasanter  relations  with  Sena 
tor  Wade.  In  the  spring  of  1863  the  canvass 
began  to  take  more  distinct  form,  and  Chase  al 
lowed  it  to  be  known  that  he  was  willing  to  accept 
any  responsibility  that  the  country  might  think 
proper  to  impose  on  him.  In  August,  1863,  his 
friends  were  openly  suggesting  him  for  the  presi 
dency  ;  and  although  he  repeatedly  expressed  a  pre 
ference  for  "  a  judicial  position,"  he  felt  sure  that 
"  he  could  administer  the  government  of  this  coun 
try  so  as  to  secure  .  .  .  our  institutions."  In  Octo 
ber  he  went  out  to  Ohio  and  took  part  in  the  state 
election  by  making  a  series  of  excellent  speeches. 
Greeley  took  up  his  cause,  and  in  private  corre 
spondence  expressed  the  liope  that  he  would  be 
nominated. 

The  motives  in  Chase's  mind  are  well  expressed 
in  an  intimate  letter  of  November  26,  1863.  "  I 
doubt  the  expediency  of  reflecting  anybody,  and 
I  think  a  man  of  different  qualities  from  those  the 
President  has  will  be  needed  for  the  next  four 


310  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

years.  ...  I  can  never  permit  myself  to  be  driven 
into  any  hostility  or  unfriendly  position  as  to  Mr. 
Lincoln.  His  course  toward  me  has  always  been 
so  fair  and  kind ;  his  progress  toward  entire  agree 
ment  with  me  on  the  great  question  of  slavery  has 
been  so  constant,  though  rather  slower  than  I 
wished  for,  and  his  general  character  is  so  marked 
by  traits  which  command  respect  and  affection, 
that  I  can  never  consent  to  anything  which  he  him 
self  could  or  would  consider  as  incompatible  with 
perfect  honor  and  good  faith,  if  I  were  capable  — 
which  I  hope  I  am  not  —  of  a  departure  from 
either,  even  where  an  enemy  might  be  concerned." 
The  interpretation  of  this  sincere  and  creditable 
letter  is  very  clear :  Chase  saw  no  reason  why  he 
should  not  seek  the  nomination  of  the  convention, 
and  prepared  the  way  for  it  by  the  organization  of 
his  friends ;  but  he  would  not  take  part  in  any 
effort  to  divide  the  Republican  party.  At  the 
same  time  his  old  delusion  as  to  the  free  principles 
of  the  regular  Democracy  came  up  to  plague  him. 
He  had  some  dim  idea  of  making  a  combination  of 
Republicans  and  war  Democrats,  on  the  platform 
of  freedom  ;  of  such  a  combination  he  would  have 
been  the  logical  candidate. 

That  his  canvass  showed  disloyalty  to  Lincoln  did 
not  enter  his  mind ;  for  in  1863  the  real  strength  of 
Lincoln  before  the  people  was  not  evident  to  Con 
gress  nor  to  some  of  the  greatest  Republican  news 
papers,  and  there  was  a  disposition  to  hold  him 
responsible  for  every  military  defeat,  and  to  give 


CHASE   AND   LINCOLN  311 

credit  to  the  generals  for  all  the  victories  ;  nobody 
could  then  predict  that  Lincoln  would  be  renom- 
iuated,  and  to  Chase's  mind  the  field  was  fair  and 
open. 

A  great  pressure  was  now  put  upon  the  secretary 
to  make  political  use  of  his  enormous  patronage 
throughout  the  Union.  Some  of  his  nominees, 
especially  in  southern  Ohio  and  the  Pacific  coast, 
were  anxious  to  press  him  for  the  presidency ;  but 
the  executive  journals  of  the  Senate  bear  indubita 
ble  testimony  to  the  fact  that,  after  the  first  series 
of  appointments  in  1861,  removals  in  the  Treasury 
Department  were  very  few,  probably  no  more  than 
were  justified  by  in  competency  and  fraud ;  and 
that,  so  far  from  building  up  a  treasury  machine, 
he  resisted  the  piteous  appeals  of  his  friends  to 
reorganize  the  Custom  House  in  New  York  and 
other  important  offices.  Collector  Barney  had 
many  enemies,  who  worked  upon  the  President  to 
remove  him ;  yet,  in  a  place  where  the  temptation 
was  strong  and  the  power  unquestioned,  Chase 
forbore  to  use  his  patronage  for  his  own  advantage, 
and  thereby  he  incurred  the  reproaches  and  even 
the  scorn  of  some  would-be  supporters.  All  the 
evidence  bears  him  out  in  his  own  statement  of 
January,  1864  :  "  I  should  despise  myself  if  I  were 
capable  of  appointing  or  removing  a  man  for  the 
sake  of  the  presidency." 

Early  in  Chase's  canvass  it  appeared  that  he  had 
not  the  open  support  of  a  single  great  party  leader, 
and  his  smaller  friends  brought  upon  him  a  need- 


312  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

less  humiliation  and  took  away  every  chance  of  his 
nomination  by  the  so-called  Pomeroy  Circular,  is 
sued  in  February,  1864,  by  a  committee  purporting 
to  be  in  charge  of  Chase's  canvass,  headed  by  Sen 
ator  Pomeroy  of  Kansas,  who  was  known  to  be  a 
friend  of  the  secretary.  The  circular  asserted  that 
Chase  had  "more  of  the  qualities  needed  in  a 
President,  during  the  next  four  years,  than  are 
combined  in  any  other  available  candidate ; "  but 
it  also  declared  that  "  the  cause  of  human  liberty 
and  the  dignity  of  the  nation  "  suffered  from  Lin 
coln's  tendency  toward  compromise ;  and  that  the 
growth  of  the  patronage  of  the  government  de 
manded  a  one-term  principle.  The  circular  there 
fore  distinctly  measured  the  two  men  against  each 
other,  and  attempted  to  build  up  Chase's  fortunes 
by  depressing  the  President's. 

This  premature  and  unwise  action  put  Chase  in 
a  very  serious  dilemma.  He  wrote  one  of  his  long 
letters  to  the  President,  explaining  that  he  had 
indeed  conferred  with  the  committee,  but  had  no 
part  in  their  circular,  and  for  at  least  the  fourth 
time  he  intimated  that  he  was  ready  to  withdraw 
from  the  Treasury  if  the  President  thought  best. 
Chase's  mortification  was  made  plain  in  a  letter  to 
Greeley  a  few  days  later,  with  an  account  of  Lin 
coln's  answer :  "  To  this  he  replied,  closing  with 
the  statement  that  there  was  nothing  in  the  condi 
tion  of  the  public  interests  which  called  for  a 
change  in  the  headship  of  my  department ;  but 
there  was  no  response  in  his  letter  to  the  senti- 


CHASE  AND   LINCOLN  313 

ments  of  respect  and  esteem  which  mine  contained. 
But  this  is  not  remarkable.  Whatever  apprecia 
tion  he  may  feel  for  the  public  service  he  never 
expresses  any.  So  I  have  worked  on." 

Under  such  conditions  Chase's  continuance  in 
the  treasury  was  only  possible  if  no  new  accident 
came  up  to  disturb  the  truce.  From  various  causes, 
but  chiefly  from  the  necessary  restrictions  on  trade 
in  the  Southwest,  Chase  had  the  ill-will  of  many 
of  the  Republican  politicians  of  Missouri,  and  espe 
cially  of  the  two  Blair  brothers,  who  together  formed 
a  considerable  political  power  ;  and  Chase  consid 
ered  their  relations  to  him  "  all  the  more  embar 
rassing  by  their  uncontradicted  claim  to  be  the 
special  representative  of  the  policy  and  views  of 
Mr.  Lincoln."  On  the  27th  of  April,  1864,  Frank 
P.  Blair  made  a  scurrilous  attack  on  Chase  in  the 
House,  asserting  that  certain  statements  with  regard 
to  himself  were  a  forgery  prepared  by  a  person  in 
the  Treasury,  "  uttered  and  put  in  circulation  by 
a  special  agent  of  the  Treasury,  and  put  in  a  news 
paper  which  was  pensioned  by  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury."  Against  Chase  he  personally  brought 
charges  of  weakness  in  resisting  secession,  based 
upon  information  as  to  a  private  cabinet  meeting 
communicated  by  his  brother,  Montgomery ;  Blair 
at  last  worked  himself  up  to  the  charge  that  Chase 
was  using  his  authority  to  control  border  inter 
course  and  to  collect  abandoned  property  "  as  a 
fund  to  carry  on  his  war  against  the  administra 
tion  which  gave  him  place." 


314  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

No  wonder  Chase  was  that  night  found  in  a 
condition  of  violent  rage ;  and  that,  when  he 
learned  that  after  this  speech  the  President  had 
carried  out  a  long  standing  promise  of  reviving 
Blair's  commission  as  major-general  in  the  army, 
he  was  on  the  point  of  resigning.  It  was  not  a 
question  on  which  Lincoln  cared  to  make  an  issue. 
To  him  the  Blairs  had  become  disagreeable  annoy 
ances,  to  be  palliated  as  much  as  possible.  The 
President  told  Chase's  friends  that  he  had  restored 
Blair  to  the  army  before  his  speech.  "  Within 
three  hours  I  heard  that  this  speech  had  been  made, 
when  I  knew  that  another  bee-hive  was  knocked 
over.  My  first  thought  was  to  have  canceled  the 
orders  restoring  him  to  the  army,  and  assigning 
him  to  command.  Perhaps  this  would  have  been 
best.  On  such  information  as  I  was  able  to  gain 
about  the  matter,  however,  I  concluded  to  let 
them  stand."  The  matter  was  thus  patched  up 
for  the  time  being,  and  in  the  course  of  the  next 
few  weeks  it  became  evident  that  Lincoln  was  cer 
tain  to  be  renominated.  Even  in  Ohio,  despite 
the  strong  efforts  of  Chase's  friends,  the  Republi 
can  members  of  the  state  legislature  passed  a  re 
solution  in  favor'  of  Lincoln  ;  and  on  April  26 
Chase  wrote  a  public  letter  of  withdrawal. 

When  on  June  7  the  Baltimore  Convention  re- 
nominated  Lincoln,  Chase's  friendly  relations  with 
the  President  ought  once  for  all  to  have  been  re 
established  :  thereafter,  no  longer  a  rival,  he  might 
nave  gone  steadily  forward  with  his  own  important 


CHASE   AND   LINCOLN  315 

duties.  It  was,  however,  a  dark  period  in  the 
financial  history  of  the  war :  the  credit  of  the  gov 
ernment  measured  by  its  legal  tender  notes  was 
steadily  declining,  and  the  strain  on  Chase's  mind 
and  temper  was  growing  more  and  more  severe,  till 
it  culminated  in  the  Gold  Bill  of  June  17.  An 
unusual  self-abnegation  on  Chase's  part  might  have 
prevented  a  rupture,  but  that  self-abnegation  he 
did  not  show,  for  even  after  the  nomination  he  felt 
injured  and  sore.  Another  cloud  now  arose  in  the 
New  York  Custom  House.  On  June  6,  the  Presi 
dent  called  on  Chase,  and  pressed  for  the  removal 
of  Barney,  to  whom  he  had  previously  offered  a 
diplomatic  position.  This  personal  conference  re 
moved  the  difficulty  for  the  time  being  ;  there  is 
some  reason  to  suppose  that  Chase  again  threat 
ened  to  resign,  and  that  the  President  again  gave 
way. 

A  few  days  later,  another  question  of  patronage 
in  New  York  came  up,  by  the  action  of  John  J. 
Cisco,  in  resigning  his  post  of  assistant  treasurer, 
because  the  office,  one  of  great  fiduciary  import 
ance,  was  underpaid.  Mr.  Chase  at  once  noti 
fied  Lincoln  that  he  would  himself  shortly  desig 
nate  a  successor.  After  several  failures  to  secure 
an  eminent  New  York  financier,  he  offered  the 
place  to  Maunsell  B.  Field,  then  assistant  secretary 
of  the  Treasury.  Senator  Morgan,  of  New  York, 
insisted  that  it  was  necessary  to  appoint  a  man 
who  would  reorganize  the  assistant  treasurer's 
office,  and  turn  out  a  lot  of  the  clerks.  The  issue 


316  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

was  decidedly  offensive  to  Chase,  who  felt  himself 
assaulted  in  his  prerogative  of  appointing  his  im 
mediate  and  confidential  subordinates,  and  who 
was  himself  called  upon  to  assent  to  the  political 
dismissal  of  experienced  subordinates. 

Field's  remembrance  of  the  President's  account 
to  him  of  the  whole  transaction  is  characteristic 
and  probably  not  far  from  correct.  "  The  Eepub- 
lican  party  in  your  State  is  divided  into  two  fac 
tions,  and  I  can't  afford  to  quarrel  with  them. 
By  accident  rather  than  by  any  design  of  mine,  the 
radicals  have  got  possession  of  the  most  important 
Federal  offices  in  New  York.  .  .  .  Had  I  under 
these  circumstances  consented  to  your  appoint 
ment,  it  would  have  been  another  radical  triumph, 
and  I  could  n't  afford  one." 

Nevertheless  the  President  bent  himself  to  a 
peaceful  settlement  of  the  perplexing  question  :  he 
promoted  a  conference  between  Senator  Morgan 
and  Chase,  and  promised  to  appoint  any  man  upon 
whom  Chase  and  the  New  York  senators  could 
agree.  But  when  Chase  asked  for  a  personal  con 
ference,  the  President  replied  that  he  hesitated, 
"  because  the  difficulty  does  not,  in  the  main  part, 
lie  within  the  range  of  a  conversation  with  you. 
As  the  proverb  goes,  '  No  man  knows  so  well 
where  the  shoe  pinches  as  he  who  wears  it.' ' 

On  June  29,  Chase  solved  the  difficulty  by  per 
suading  Cisco  to  withdraw  his  resignation ;  and 
there  the  matter  might  have  ended,  had  he  so 
chosen  ;  but  he  had  already  written  a  letter  of  re- 


CHASE  AND  LINCOLN  317 

signation,  which  he  could  not  deny  himself  the 
satisfaction  of  sending,  as  a  suggestion  of  the  dan 
ger  which  had  been  escaped.  u  I  can  not  help 
feeling,"  said  he,  "  that  my  position  here  is  not 
altogether  agreeable  to  you  ;  and  it  is  certainly 
too  full  of  embarrassment  and  difficulty  and  pain 
ful  responsibility,  to  allow  in  me  the  least  desire  to 
retain  it.  I  think  it  my  duty,  therefore,  to  inclose 
to  you  my  resignation.  I  shall  regard  it  as  a  real 
relief  if  you  think  proper  to  accept  it,  and  will 
most  cheerfully  render  to  my  successor  any  aid  he 
may  find  useful  in  entering  upon  his  duties." 

This  fourth  or  perhaps  fifth  formal  resignation  of 
Secretary  Chase  ended  his  official  life.  The  Presi 
dent  unexpectedly  accepted  it,  and  though  the  next 
day  Chase  hinted  to  Stanton,  "  I  feared  you  might 
be  prompted  by  your  generous  sentiment  to  take 
some  step  injurious  to  the  country,"  no  other  mem 
ber  of  the  Cabinet  stirred.  In  truth,  Chase  was 
taken  by  surprise  that  the  President  had  not  put 
the  resignation  through  the  usual  course  of  remon 
strance,  argument,  and  recall ;  and  his  anger  and 
disappointment  are  too  frankly  recorded  in  his  own 
diary :  "  There  I  found  a  letter  from  the  President, 
accepting  my  resignation,  and  putting  the  accept 
ance  on  the  ground  of  the  difference  between  us 
indicating  a  degree  of  embarrassment  in  our  official 
relations  which  could  not  be  continued  or  sustained 
consistently  with  the  public  service.  I  had  found 
a  good  deal  of  embarrassment  from  him ;  but  what 
he  had  found  from  me  I  could  not  imagine,  unless 


318  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

it  has  been  caused  by  my  unwillingness  to  have 
offices  distributed  as  spoils  or  benefits,  with  more 
regard  to  the  claims  of  divisions,  factions,  cliques, 
and  individuals,  than  to  fitness  of  selection.  He 
had  never  given  me  the  active  and  earnest  support 
I  was  entitled  to ;  and  even  now  Congress  was 
about  to  adjourn  without  passing  sufficient  tax  bills, 
though  making  appropriations  with  lavish  profu 
sion,  and  he  was,  notwithstanding  my  appeals,  tak 
ing  no  pains  to  insure  a  different  result." 

The  real  reason  for  the  resignation  was  expressed 
by  Chase  in  a  private  conference  with  Whitelaw 
Reid :  "  He  supposed  that  the  root  of  the  matter 
was  a  difficulty  of  temperament.  The  truth  is 
that  I  have  never  been  able  to  make  a  joke  out  of 
this  war."  At  first  he  could  not  believe  that  he 
was  actually  out  of  the  administration.  When  his 
successor,  Fessenden,  informed  him  that  the  Presi 
dent  had  asked  him  not  to  remove  Chase's  friends, 
Chase  entered  in  his  diary :  "  Had  the  President 
in  the  reply  to  my  note  tendering  my  resignation 
expressed  himself  as  he  did  now  to  Mr.  Fessenden, 
I  should  have  cheerfully  withdrawn  it."  And  when 
Sumner  suggested  that  he  might  be  recalled  as 
Necker  had  been  in  France  a  century  earlier,  he 
replied  that  Lincoln  was  no  Louis  the  Sixteenth. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

THE   JUDICIAL    PROBLEM    OF   RECONSTRUCTION 

IN  an  article  written  in  early  life,  Chase  eulo 
gized  Chief  Justice  Marshall,  "  whose  decisions 
upon  the  delicate  and  important  questions  at  this 
period  perpetually  arising,  by  their  wisdom,  their 
justice,  and  their  explicitness,  commend  themselves 
equally  to  the  understanding,  the  conscience,  and 
the  heart  of  all  our  citizens."  An  interest  in  the 
position  of  chief  justice  never  ceased  to  influence 
him.  While  still  a  senator  he  said  to  a  friend  that 
there  were  two  offices  which  he  should  like  to  hold  : 
"  I  should  like  to  be  chief  justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court  and  overrule  all  the  pro-slavery  decisions ; 
I  should  like  to  be  President  of  the  United  States 
and  reverse  the  policy  of  the  administration  as 
Jefferson  reversed  it."  When,  in  the  third  year 
of  the  secretaryship,  Taney  was  known  to  be  fail 
ing,  the  thought  was  evidently  in  Chase's  mind 
that  he  himself  might  be  the  successor.  He  had 
already  dropped  the  remark  to  the  President,  that 
he  "  would  rather  be  Chief  Justice  than  hold  any 
other  position  that  could  be  given  ; "  and  in  July, 
1864,  Lincoln  told  the  Senate  Committee  on  Fi 
nance  that  he  should  appoint  him  to  the  office  if 


320  SALMON   PORTLAND  CHASE 

there  were  a  vacancy.  He  afterward  said  to  Car 
penter  that  "  there  had  never  been  a  time  during 
his  presidency  when,  in  the  event  of  the  death  of 
Judge  Taney,  he  had  not  fully  intended  and  ex 
pected  to  nominate  Salmon  P.  Chase  for  chief 
justice."  Hence  it  is  probable  that  if  the  death  of 
Taney  had  occurred  in  the  spring  of  1864  instead 
of  in  October,  Chase  would  have  been  at  once 
transferred,  in  time  to  prevent  the  pain  and  humili 
ation  of  his  retirement  from  the  treasury.  Mean 
while  after  his  withdrawal  he  said  many  bitter 
things  of  Lincoln,  and  for  three  months  he  hung 
back  in  the  presidential  campaign  ;  not  until  Sep 
tember  did  he  begin  to  work  on  the  stump  in 
behalf  of  the  Republican  ticket.  That  he  was 
unaware  of  Lincoln's  magnanimous  purpose  seems 
clear  from  the  strong  but  unsuccessful  attempt  of 
his  friends,  in  August,  to  secure  for  him  a  nomi 
nation  from  the  Cincinnati  district  to  the  lower 
house  of  Congress. 

As  soon  as  the  presidential  election  was  over,  the 
President  set  himself  seriously  to  the  selection  of 
a  successor  to  Taney.  Candidates  were  numerous : 
Justice  Swayne  of  Ohio  desired  and  manoeuvred 
for  promotion,  and  had  the  powerful  support  of 
Justice  David  Davis,  a  personal  friend  of  Lincoln  ; 
Montgomery  Blair,  who  had  been  cast  out  of  the 
cabinet,  sought  for  the  nomination ;  Chase  at  one 
time  believed  that  Stanton  was  the  person  to  be 
designated  ;  of  another  candidate  put  forward  by 
Massachusetts  men,  Chase  said :  "  Evarts  is  a  man 


PROBLEM  OF  RECONSTRUCTION          321 

of  sterling  abilities  and  excellent  learning  and  a 
much  greater  lawyer  than  I  ever  pretended  to  be. 
The  truth  is,  I  always  thought  myself  much  overesti 
mated.  And  yet  I  think  I  have  more  judgment 
than  Evarts,  and  that  tried  by  the  Marshall  stand 
ard  [I]  should  make  a  better  judge ;  while  he 
might,  tried  by  the  Story  standard."  Chase's 
warmest  friend  and  most  effective  supporter  was 
Sumner,  who  thought  that  months  earlier  he  had 
secured  a  promise  for  his  friend  from  Lincoln  ; 
and  he  did  not  cease  to  press  his  candidate. 

On  the  other  side  there  was  a  strong  objection 
to  Chase  from  leading  Republicans  the  country 
over  ;  delegations  appeared  from  Ohio,  and  protests 
were  filed.  Lincoln  had  no  longer  any  personal 
rivalry  to  fear,  but  those  who  were  nearest  to  him 
were  at  the  time  convinced  that  he  hesitated  be 
cause  he  feared  that  Chase  would  make  the  bench 
a  stepping-stone  to  the  White  House  ;  when  Riddle, 
at  Chase's  urgent  request,  waited  on  Lincoln  to 
urge  his  claims,  the  President  asked  him  whether 
Chase  would  be  satisfied  to  remain  chief  justice. 
His  own  recent  differences  with  his  imperious 
secretary,  and  even  the  reports  of  Chase's  exasper 
ated  comments,  made  so  little  impression  on  Lin 
coln  that  on  December  6  Chase  was  nominated  for 
the  chief  justiceship  and  forthwith  confirmed  by 
the  Senate  without  reference  to  committee.  He 
accepted  the  appointment  in  a  very  warm  note, 
assuring  Lincoln  that  he  prized  his  confidence  and 
good-will  more  than  any  nomination  to  office. 


322  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

Upon  the  whole  the  appointment  seemed  ju 
dicious  and  was  well  received.  It  was  true  that 
Chase's  experience  had  been  chiefly  legislative  ;  but 
it  was  also  true  that  both  Marshall  and  Taney  had 
been  appointed  from  cabinet  offices  and  not  from 
active  practice  or  the  bench ;  and  that  the  immedi 
ate  questions  which  confronted  the  court  required 
less  a  consummate  knowledge  of  law  than  a  broad 
statesmanship,  which  could  take  into  account  the 
significant  legal  and  political  changes  brought 
about  by  the  Civil  War,  together  with  such  a  sense 
of  the  dignity  of  the  court  as  might  restore  its 
weakened  prestige. 

Although  Chase  had  never  sat  upon  the  bench, 
he  fell  easily  into  the  routine  of  the  court,  and 
interested  himself  in  improving  its  library  and 
other  facilities.  He  was  thought  by  some  of  the 
subordinate  judicial  officers  to  be  unduly  severe ; 
and  sometimes  freely  criticised  the  reporter  or  even 
associate  justices  for  what  he  thought  inaccurate 
statements  of  his  opinions.  He  had  in  his  hands 
a  considerable  patronage,  of  which  the  most  valu 
able  was  the  designation  of  the  marshalship  of 
the  Supreme  Court.  The  incumbent  when  Chase 
assumed  his  office  was  Ward  H.  Lamon,  a  personal 
friend  of  Lincoln  ;  but  Chase  complained  of  his 
accounts ;  he  retired  in  June,  1865.  The  chief 
justice  took  an  opportunity  in  April,  1867,  to  secure 
the  appointment  of  his  intimate  friend,  Richard 
C.  Parsons,  of  Cleveland.  Unfortunately,  in  1872, 
Parsons  became  involved  in  a  lobbying  enterprise 


PROBLEM   OF  RECONSTRUCTION          323 

with  Judge  Charles  Sherman,  the  result  of  which 
was  that  both  were  compelled  to  resign,  and  John 
G.  Nicolay  was  appointed  in  Parsons'  place. 

In  1867  the  new  bankruptcy  act  required  the 
commissioning  of  a  large  number  of  registers  in 
bankruptcy.  Since  Congress  was  unwilling  to  give 
additional  patronage  to  the  President,  it  made  the 
unusual  provision  that  the  registers  should  be  ap 
pointed  by  the  district  courts,  but  only  on  recom 
mendations  by  the  chief  justice.  Barney  wrote  to 
Chase  from  New  York :  "  At  least  three  hundred 
members  of  the  bar  have  asked  me  for  letters  re 
commending  them  or  their  friends  for  register." 
The  distribution  of  this  patronage  gave  the  chief 
justice  much  annoyance,  but  also  a  power,  which 
he  highly  enjoyed,  of  pleasing  his  friends  and  of 
exercising  his  discrimination. 

No  man  in  the  history  of  the  country,  except 
perhaps  John  Jay,  has  ever  had  such  opportunities 
for  experience  in  all  three  of  the  great  depart 
ments  of  the  government.  Chase  had  been  senator 
and  had  seen  much  of  the  working  of  Congress  dur 
ing  the  Civil  War,  had  been  the  most  important 
figure  in  a  cabinet,  and  was  now  to  learn  the  inner 
workings  of  the  federal  judiciary  department.  He 
found  it  in  a  depressed  and  humiliated  condition, 
its  jurisdiction  limited  by  the  creation  of  extra- 
judicial  tribunals,  its  machinery  embarrassed  by 
an  outgrown,  clumsy,  and  laborious  system  of  cir 
cuits.  The  Supreme  Court,  although  it  still  con 
tinued  its  decisions  in  cases  of  private  law,  showed 


324  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

little  vitality  during  the  Civil  War,  and  avoided 
decisions  which  bore  on  the  great  questions  then 
before  the  country. 

In  1864  the  court  was  undergoing  the  process 
of  rapid  renewal,  which  it  had  experienced  twice 
before  in  the  history  of  the  country :  between  1804 
and  1811  five  of  the  seven  justices  were  newly  ap 
pointed  ;  and  again,  between  1829  and  1837,  Jack 
son  had  the  nomination  of  six  of  the  nine  judges ; 
and  the  court  which  he  thus  reconstituted  at  once 
took  more  conservative  ground  on  the  powers  of 
Congress  and  the  limitations  on  the  States.  Lin 
coln  found  among  the  nine  justiceships  one  vacancy 
which  had  not  been  filled  by  Buchanan ;  and  the 
death  of  McLean  in  April,  1861,  and  the  resigna 
tion  of  Campbell  in  May,  1861,  together  with  a 
tenth  justiceship  created  by  the  act  of  March  3, 
1863,  and  the  death  of  Taney  in  1864,  gave  the 
opportunity  of  replacing  five  conservative  judges 
with  Eepublicans  and  anti-slavery  men.  For  some 
time  Lincoln  hesitated  to  use  his  power.  In  his 
annual  message  of  1861,  he  pointed  out  the  diffi 
culties  due  to  the  existence  of  civil  war  in  two  of 
the  vacant  districts,  and  said:  "  I  have  been  un 
willing  to  throw  all  the  appointments  northward, 
thus  disabling  myself  from  doing  justice  to  the 
South  on  the  return  of  peace."  He  proposed  the 
creation  of  additional  circuit  judges,  to  relieve  the 
supreme  justices  from  the  increasing  labor  of  ser 
vice  on  circuit. 

In  1862  Lincoln  overcame  these  scruples,  and 


PROBLEM  OF  RECONSTRUCTION          325 

appointed  in  quick  succession  Swayne  of  Ohio, 
Miller  of  Iowa,  and  Davis  of  Illinois ;  in  1863  he 
added  Field  of  California  as  tenth  justice ;  and  in 
1864 ,  he  appointed  Chase.  Though  Catron  died 
in  May,  1865,  and  Wayne  in  1867,  no  successors 
to  them  were  appointed,  and  no  further  change 
occurred  till  after  the  first  legal-tender  decision  in 
1870.  From  1865  to  1870  the  court  remained 
made  up  of  Lincoln's  five  appointees,  together  with 
Nelson,  Grier,  Clifford,  and  (till  1867)  Wayne. 

It  had  thus  unexpectedly  been  put  into  the 
power  of  Lincoln  to  carry  out  a  plan  which  he  him 
self  suggested  in  1858,  the  plan  of  reorganizing 
the  Supreme  Court  till  it  should  reverse  the  Dred 
Scott  decision  ;  but  before  a  majority  of  the  judges 
had  been  obtained,  the  spirit  of  the  Dred  Scott 
decision  was  effectually  reversed  by  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment ;  and  precisely  as  had  happened  under 
Jefferson  and  Madison,  it  was  found  that  the  re 
constructed  court  inherited  the  conservative  spirit 
of  its  predecessors.  The  Supreme  Court  continued 
to  hold  fast  to  its  time-honored  principles  on  pub 
lic  law  and  private  rights  rather  than  to  set  up  a 
new  regime  ;  and  Chase's  influence  bore  for  caution 
and  restraint,  and  not  for  radical  changes. 

Notwithstanding  the  violent  legislation  of  the 
Civil  War,  and  the  disturbance  of  property  rights 
caused  by  military  movements,  the  Supreme  Court 
from  1861  to  1864  pronounced  but  three  decisions 
on  what  could  fairly  be  considered  political  cases  ; 
and  in  neither  of  the  three  did  it  stand  against 


326  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

authority  claimed  by  Congress  or  the  President. 
In  the  first  of  these  cases  (State  of  New  York  v. 
Commissioners  of  Taxes,  1862-63)  the  court  held 
that  a  State  could  not  tax  bank  capital  which  stood 
in  the  form  of  United  States  securities.  The  deci 
sion  in  the  Prize  Cases  of  1863  gave  the  Supreme 
Court  an  opportunity  to  acknowledge  the  existence 
of  "  civil  war,"  and  the  right  of  the  President  to 
declare  a  blockade,  while  it  held  also  that  the  war 
"  may  be  called  an  4  insurrection '  by  one  side,  and 
the  insurgents  be  considered  as  rebels  or  traitors ;  " 
and  all  persons  residing  within  the  Southern  lines 
were  "  liable  to  be  treated  as  enemies."  The  deci 
sion  plainly  applied  the  principles  of  international 
law  to  the  struggle,  without  denying  that  in  the 
end  the  participants  might  also  be  subjected  to  the 
penalties  of  the  municipal  law. 

Various  attempts  were  made  to  secure  from  the 
Supreme  Court  a  decision  against  the  arbitrary 
powers  assumed  by  Congress  and  the  President; 
but,  though  the  court  held  back,  Chief  Justice 
Taney  delivered  an  opinion  in  the  case  of  Ex  parte 
Merryman,  which  was  intended  to  be  a  protest 
against  the  suspension  of  habeas  corpus  by  execu 
tive  regulation.  In  May,  1861,  Merryman  was 
arrested  in  Maryland  on  a  charge  of  treason,  and 
confined  in  Fort  McHenry.  Taney  sitting  alone  on 
the  Circuit  bench  issued  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  to 
which  the  military  officer  —  though  no  public  notice 
of  any  executive  orders  had  been  given  —  replied 
that  he  was  authorized  by  the  President  to  sus- 


PROBLEM  OF  RECONSTRUCTION          327 

pend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  for  the  public 
safety.  Taney  thereupon  ordered  the  arrest  of  the 
officer,  on  the  ground  that  there  was  no  process 
short  of  an  act  of  Congress  which  could  justify 
military  detention  of  a  civilian,  and  that  the  Presi 
dent  had  no  constitutional  authority  to  suspend  the 
habeas  corpus,  and  of  course  none  to  delegate  such 
suspension.  The  marshal  was,  however,  by  mili 
tary  force  prevented  from  serving  the  writ,  and 
Taney,  with  a  clear  understanding  of  his  helpless 
ness,  certified  his  decision  to  the  President,  in 
order  that,  as  he  said,  that  officer  might  "  perform 
his  constitutional  duty  to  enforce  the  laws ;  or  at 
least  to  enforce  a  process  of  this  kind."  The  Presi 
dent  simply  ignored  Taney's  decision,  and  through 
out  the  war  continued  to  hold  suspected  persons 
under  arrest,  at  first  by  his  own  authority  and  then 
under  legislation  obtained  from  Congress. 

March  3,  1863,  Congress  passed  an  act  authoriz 
ing  the  suspension  of  habeas  corpus  by  the  Presi 
dent,  and  this  was  subsequently  construed  to  au 
thorize  military  commissions  even  within  the  limits 
of  Northern  States  removed  from  the  theatre  of 
war.  The  only  legal  authority  for  such  action  was 
to  be  sought  in  a  broad  and  dangerous  extension 
of  the  power  to  make  war,  and  it  ignored  the  ordi 
nary  judiciary.  In  the  Vallandiyham  Case,  in 
February,  1864  (the  third  of  the  political  cases 
brought  before  the  court)  an  attempt  was  made  to 
reverse  the  decision  of  a  military  commission  held 
in  Ohio,  which  condemned  Vallandigham  for  offen- 


328  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

sive  and  treasonable  utterances  in  public  speeches. 
The  Supreme  Court,  however,  refused  to  interfere, 
basing  its  decision  on  the  technical  ground  that, 
whatever  the  merits  of  the  case,  it  had  no  jurisdic 
tion,  because  there  was  no  legal  method  of  appeal 
ing  from  a  military  commission  to  the  Supreme 
Court. 

On  slavery,  on  the  validity  of  the  acts  of  the 
seceded  States  under  the  Confederacy,  and  on  the 
relation  of  those  States  to  the  Union,  the  Supreme 
Court  expressed  no  opinion  ;  and,  so  far  as  possi 
ble,  it  staved  off  cases  which  involved  such  ques 
tions.  At  the  end  of  1865,  Chase  informed  the 
President :  "  The  Supreme  Court  has  hitherto  de 
clined  to  consider  cases  brought  before  it  by  bill 
or  writs  of  error  from  circuit  or  district  courts  in 
the  rebellious  portion  of  the  country."  This  prin 
ciple  applied  even  in  those  parts  of  Virginia  within 
the  Union  lines,  in  which  the  federal  courts  had 
maintained  a  formal  existence.  Chase  himself, 
when  he  first  faced  the  problems  likely  to  come 
before  the  court,  intimated  to  a  friend  that  he 
might  be  more  useful  off  the  bench  than  on  it 
"  when  the  reorganization  comes  about ; "  but  his 
correspondent  replied  :  "  The  Supreme  Court  may 
be  the  great  power  yet  that  is  to  settle  the  great 
questions  upon  which  perhaps  may  depend  the 
perpetuity  of  our  government." 

This  prophecy  was  soon  to  be  justified,  for  within 
two  years  after  Chase's  appointment  the  court  had 
begun  to  render  a  series  of  brilliant  and  far-reach- 


PROBLEM   OF  RECONSTRUCTION          329 

ing  decisions,  which  at  the  same  time  restored  its 
own  prestige,  crystallized  the  body  of  law  arising 
out  of  the  Civil  War,  and  moderated  the  excesses 
of  Congress.  All  the  questions  which  finally  stood 
forth  for  judicial  decision  had  been  presented  to 
Chase  while  he  was  still  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
and  upon  most  of  them  he  had  then  made  up  his 
mind.  The  first  and  most  difficult  inquiry  was, 
What  is  the  legal  status  of  the  seceded  States  ? 
The  second  was,  By  whose  authority  shall  they  be 
allowed  to  resume  their  place  in  the  Union  after 
the  war?  A  third  was,  What  shall  be  the  status 
and  punishment  of  the  individuals  who  have  joined 
in  the  rebellion  ?  The  fourth  question,  which  grew 
more  important  throughout  the  war  and  was  the 
last  of  all  to  be  completely  decided  was,  What  legal 
and  political  status  shall  be  given  to  the  negro  ? 

On  all  these  points  Lincoln  early  took  ground, 
and  on  nearly  all  Chase  opposed  him.  Lincoln's 
theory  of  the  status  of  the  States  was  set  forth  in 
his  own  fashion  in  an  argument  which  he  made 
in  July,  1862  :  "  Broken  eggs  cannot  be  mended  ; 
but  Louisiana  has  nothing  to  do  now  but  to  take 
her  place  in  the  Union  as  it  was,  barring  the 
already  broken  eggs.  The  sooner  she  does  so, 
the  smaller  will  be  the  amount  of  that  which  will 
be  past  mending.  This  government  cannot  much 
longer  play  a  game  in  which  it  stakes  all,  and  its 
enemies  stake  nothing.  Those  enemies  must  un 
derstand  that  they  cannot  experiment  for  ten  years 
trying  to  destroy  the  government,  and  if  they  fail 


330  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

still  come  back  into  the  Union  unhurt."  This  pun 
gent  statement  indicated  Lincoln's  purpose  to  re 
store  the  States  as  soon  as  they  were  sufficiently 
cleared  of  the  Confederate  troops,  and  he  carried 
out  his  policy  in  1862  by  favoring  the  admission 
of  West  Virginia  with  a  separate  state  govern 
ment,  and  by  securing  through  his  military  com 
manders  a  choice  of  two  congressmen  from  Louisi 
ana  ;  and  the  House  of  Representatives  admitted 
the  principle  by  admitting  those  two  as  members. 
Chase  was  from  the  first  opposed  both  to  the  prin 
ciple  of  presidential  reconstruction,  and  to  the 
method ;  for  he  could  not  accept  the  idea  that  the 
States  were  to  come  back  into  the  Union  whenever 
they  withdrew  from  the  Confederacy.  In  March, 

1862,  he  gave  his  adhesion  to  the  theory  that  "  the 
government  in  suppression  of  rebellion,  in  view  of 
the  destruction  by  suicide  of  the  State  governments 
with  the  actual  or  strongly  implied  consent  of  the 
majority  of  the  citizens  of  the  several  rebel  States 
[which]  have  so  far  forfeited  all  right  to  be  re 
garded  as  States,  might  justly  treat  them  as  terri 
tories,"  and  he  preferred  to  have  Congress  assert 
authority  to  set  up  provisional  governments  in  place 
of  those  supported  by  the  President. 

On  the  question  of  the  Southern  whites,  Lincoln 
took  ground  by  his  proclamation  of  December  8, 

1863,  in  which  he  prescribed  a  test  oath,   which 
committed  the  taker  to  support  all  acts  of  Con 
gress  and  proclamations  of  the  President  with  re 
gard  to  slavery,  "  so  long  and  so  far  as  not  repealed, 


PROBLEM  OF  RECONSTRUCTION          331 

modified,  or  held  void  by  Congress  or  by  decision 
of  the  Supreme  Couft."  He  promised  to  recognize 
such  state  government  in  each  of  the  seceded 
States  as  might  be  set  up  by  persons  who  could 
and  would  take  the  oath  and  were  in  number  not 
less  than  one  tenth  of  the  vote  cast  at  the  election 
of  1860.  This  meant  that  the  authority  in  the 
reconstructed  -States  should  be  committed  to  such 
of  the  whites  as-  had  not  held  conspicuous  stations 
in  the  service  of  the  Confederacy  and  were  willing 
to  accept  the  emancipation  proclamation.  Chase 
criticised  this  proposition,  which  indeed  had  many 
elements  of  weakness.  "  I  don't  like  the  qualifi 
cation  in  the  oath  required,"  said  he,  "nor  the 
limitation  of  the  right  of  suffrage  to  those  who 
take  the  oath,  and  are  otherwise  qualified  accord 
ing  to  the  state  laws  in  force  before  rebellion.  I 
fear  these  are  fatal  concessions.  Why  should  not 
all  soldiers  who  fight  for  their  country  vote  in  it  ?  " 
On  the  question  of  the  negroes  Chase  held  the 
strongest  convictions  of  his  life,  and  he  protested 
against  excluding  them  from  a  share  in  the  recon 
structed  governments.  During  1863  Chase  put 
forth  a  strong  pressure  for  the  reorganization  of 
Florida,  of  which  a  small  tract  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Fernandina  and  Jacksonville  was  occupied  by 
Federal  troops.  His  interest  in  this  enterprise  led 
him  to  analyze  more  carefully  the  conditions  of  the 
problem.  As  a  result  he  came  to  see  how  import 
ant  was  the  future  of  the  negro,  and  how  hard  it 
would  be  to  protect  him.  He  proposed  arming  the 


332  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

"  loyal  native  population,  white  and  black,"  and 
holding  back  the  States  from  reconstruction  till 
they  should  abolish  slavery.  By  the  beginning  of 
1864  he  was  writing  of  "  the  free  labor  and  free 
suffrage  basis,"  and  had  proposed  to  his  agents  in 
Louisiana  to  secure  negro  suffrage  with  an  educa 
tional  clause. 

Meanwhile  Congress  had  become  aroused  to  the 
gravity  of  the  problem,  and  to  the  immense  power 
which  the  President  proposed  to  exercise,  by  him 
self  deciding  the  conditions  of  reentrance  to  the 
Union ;  and  in  July,  1864,  the  so-called  "  Davis- 
Wade  Bill "  brought  the  President  and  Congress 
into  sharp  collision  over  the  fundamental  question 
as  to  which  of  the  two  authorities  was  to  determine 
when  the  States  were  ready  to  reassume  their  place 
in  the  Union.  Though  the  bill  authorized  the 
President  to  set  up  provisional  state  govern 
ments,  it  provided  that  these  were  to  be  trans 
formed  into  permanent  governments  only  through 
action  of  Congress.  Accordingly  Lincoln  refused 
to  sign  it,  and  took  the  unusual  step  of  issuing  a 
proclamation,  declaring  his  purpose  to  decide  that 
question  himself.  During  the  adjournment  of 
Congress  and  the  campaign  of  1864,  Lincoln  on 
his  own  responsibility  caused  the  reorganization  of 
state  governments  in  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  and 
Tennessee ;  and  had  he  lived  to  the  session  of  1865- 
1866,  the  conflict  of  his  authority  with  that  of 
Congress  must  have  again  come  up  in  a  more  seri 
ous  form. 


PROBLEM  OF  RECONSTRUCTION          333 

The  assassination  of  Lincoln,  and  the  accession 
of  a  man  who  hated  the  dominant  white  element  in 
the  South,  threw  the  whole  scheme  of  reconstruc 
tion  into  confusion  ;  and  during  the  year  1865  the 
conditions  of  the  South  and  the  dimensions  of  the 
problem  began  to  be  more  clearly  appreciated  in 
the  North.  The  most  important  question  at  the 
outset  was  the  status  of  the  Southern  whites. 
Events  had  long  since  destroyed  the  belief,  held 
at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  that  a  large  majority 
in  most  of  the  Southern  States  was  really  opposed 
to  secession  ;  nearly  all  the  able-bodied  men  in 
the  South  went  into  the  Confederate  Army,  or  at 
least  into  the  civil  service  of  the  Confederacy  or 
the  state  governments.  If  secession  were  treason, 
almost  all  Southerners  had  involved  themselves  in 
the  penalties  for  the  act ;  and  general  convictions 
and  executions  would  be  very  like  massacres. 

Economically  the  South  was  prostrate.  The 
great  slaveholders,  who  had  held  the  most  impor 
tant  stations  before  the  war  and  the  most  dangerous 
responsibilities  during  it,  had  met  financial  ruin. 
Their  invested  funds  had  gone  directly  or  indirectly 
into  Confederate  loans  ;  their  accumulations  had 
been  swept  away  by  the  demands  of  the  war ;  large 
numbers  of  their  negroes  either  were  wanderers  or 
had  disappeared  altogether.  Only  the  soil  was 
left,  and  even  that  in  many  cases  had  been  devas 
tated  by  campaigns.  Politically  the  old  leaders 
were  for  the  time  overborne ;  some  were  in  exile, 
and  many  were  glad  to  seek  obscurity;  a  few, 


334  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

including  Jefferson  Davis,  were  in  the  hands  of  the 
federal  government,  and  it  was  expected  that  an 
example  would  be  made  of  them  by  trials  for 
treason. 

In  May,  1865,  practically  under  commission  of 
the  President,  Chase  made  a  visit  to  the  Southern 
ports  of  South  Carolina,  Florida,  and  Louisiana, 
returning  by  the  Mississippi  River.  He  reported  to 
the  President  a  belief  that  many  of  the  white  men 
who  had  engaged  in  the  rebellion  would  be  glad  to 
take  a  loyal  part  in  the  reconstructed  government : 
but  before  he  returned  Johnson  had  issued  his 
proclamation  of  May  29,  1865,  granting  general 
amnesty  and  pardon  to  such  as  would  take  an  oath 
to  support  all  laws  and  proclamations  made,  during 
the  rebellion,  with  reference  to  the  emancipation 
of  slaves.  From  the  privileges  of  this  amnesty, 
however,  he  excluded  fourteen  classes  of  persons, 
including  nearly  all  those  who  had  shown  energy 
and  character  during  the  Civil  War.  It  was  there 
fore  apparent  that  the  President  intended  to  let  the 
poor  whites  organize  and  carry  on  the  Southern 
state  governments  with  the  assistance  of  such  of 
the  more  distinguished  persons  as  he  might  indi 
vidually  pardon.  The  class  upon  which  Johnson 
depended  was  not  equal  to  the  responsibility  which 
he  thrust  upon  it.  The  former  small  slaveholders 
stood  not  far  from  where  they  had  been  at  the 
beginning  of  the  war,  for  they  could  easily  replace 
their  lost  slaves  with  hired  laborers,  and  they  were 
not  on  the  lists  of  proscriptions.  The  poor  whites, 


PROBLEM   OF  RECONSTRUCTION          335 

notwithstanding  their  great  sacrifice  of  life  during 
the  war,  found  their  condition  hardly  altered. 
Throughout  the  South  was  also  a  sprinkling  of 
Northerners,  in  many  cases  former  federal  officers, 
who  had  taken  part  in  the  founding  of  the  new 
governments  in  1865.  These  "carpet-baggers" 
were  already  hated,  and  now,  as  centres  of  organi 
zation  for  the  negroes,  they  became  the  point  of 
attack  by  the  native  Southerners. 

Of  all  the  questions  of  reconstruction,  that  in 
which  Chase  was  most  interested  from  beginning 
to  end  was  the  status  of  the  negroes.  As  far  back 
as  September,  1862,  he  notes  that  he  "  called  on 
attorney  general  about  citizenship  of  colored  men. 
Found  him  adverse  to  expressing  official  opinion  ;  " 
and  in  an  earlier  chapter  we  have  seen  how  faith 
fully  he  followed  up  the  interests  of  the  freedman. 
So  far  as  the  existence  of  slavery  went,  the 
Thirteenth  Amendment,  declared  to  be  in  force  in 
December,  1865,  was  a  constitutional  guarantee 
which  superseded  the  revocable  abolition  acts  of 
the  States  reconstructed  during  that  year;  and 
it  took  out  of  the  list  of  conditions  which  might  be 
imposed  upon  the  States  an  acknowledgment  of 
the  freedom  of  the  former  slaves ;  it  superseded 
also  the  special  conditions  of  the  amnesty  pro 
clamations  of  Lincoln  and  Johnson.  There  still 
remained  a  necessity  for  statutes  or  constitutional 
amendments  to  define  the  judicial  and  other  civil  / 
rights  of  the  negroes ;  andHJhase  was  one  of  the  f 
earliest  among  public  men  to  insist  that  negro 


336  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

suffrage  must  be  made  a  general  system,  and  must 
be  imposed  as  a  condition  of  reconstruction.  This 
conviction  found  voice  in  his  last  letter  to  Lincoln, 
April  12,  1865  :  "  Once  I  should  have  been,  if  not 
satisfied,  partially,  at  least,  contented  with  suffrage 
for  the  intelligent  and  for  those  who  had  been 
soldiers ;  now  I  am  convinced  that  universal  suf 
frage  is  demanded  by  sound  policy  and  impartial 
justice." 

During  1865  both  the  legal  and  the  economic 
status  of  the  negroes  were  confused  and  unsatis 
factory.  President  Johnson's  favored  state  govern 
ments  in  the  South  showed  little  sympathy  with  the 
blacks,  and  in  several  of  the  States,  according  to 
Chase's  own  observation,  they  seemed  likely  to  re 
turn  to  a  legal  restraint  very  like  their  former 
bondage.  In  some  cases  vagrant  laws  were  passed, 
so  stringent  that  the  negroes  would  practically  have 
been  again  subjected  to  the  forcible  control  of  their 
former  masters. 

The  war  had  brought  about,  not  only  freedom, 
but  great  changes  in  economic  conditions.  Many 
thousands  of  the  freedmen  had  abandoned  their 
plantations  and  were  still  under  government  super 
vision  ;  hence  at  the  end  of  the  war  it  was  found 
necessary  to  continue  the  control  and  support 
which  had  for  several  years  been  carried  on  under 
military  authority.  This  was  done  through  the 
so-called  "  Bureau  of  Refugees,  Freedmen,  and 
Abandoned  Lands,"  which  was  created  by  an  act  of 
March  3,  1865,  and  put  under  the  control  of  a 


PROBLEM  OF  RECONSTRUCTION          337 

special  commissioner.  This  institution  was  con 
tinued  by  an  act  of  July,  1866,  passed  over  the 
President's  veto  ;  and  the  United  States  was  thus 
committed  to  the  position  of  guardian  to  thousands 
of  negroes.  The  system  had  Chase's  warm  sym 
pathy,  and  in  1866  he  accepted  the  presidency  of 
the  "  American  Freedman's  Union  Commission," 
one  of  the  benevolent  societies  intended  to  carry  on 
the  work  of  civilization.  Both  under  government 
supervision  and  through  the  missionary  associa 
tions,  schools  were  started,  and  the  negroes  showed 
a  great  desire  to  learn  ;  but  they  were  unorganized, 
very  ignorant,  poor,  and  dependent  upon  day  wages  ; 
and  moreover  the  efforts  to  relieve  them  were 
viewed  by  the  Southern  people  as  an  attempt  to 
give  them  social  equality  with  white  people. 

The  conditions  of  the  problem  were  difficult  in 
themselves,  and  its  solution  was  delayed  by  the 
unfortunate  controversy  between  President  John 
son  and  Congress,  which  began  as  soon  as  Congress 
assembled  in  December,  1865.  In  the  details  of 
that  controversy  and  in  the  discussion  of  the  funda 
mental  basis  on  which  it  rested,  Chase  took  little 
part,  except  so  far  as  the  special  interests  of  the 
negroes  were  concerned.  He  saw  as  clearly  as 
anybody  that  peace  had  brought  about  a  logical 
dilemma  from  which  there  was  no  escape  :  the  war, 
begun  in  1861  on  the  theory  that  it  was  impossible 
for  a  State  to  withdraw  from  the  Union,  ended  in 
the  plain  fact  that  the  seceded  States  were  practi 
cally  out  of  the  Union  ;  and  the  President,  Con- 


338  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

gress,  and  the  Northern  people  all  took  for  granted 
that  the  Southern  States  should  be  subjected  to 
some  kind  of  expiatory  process  before  individuals 
returned  to  their  former  public  rights,  and  before 
communities  recovered  their  privileges  as  a  part 
of  the  federal  government.  Significant  differences 
of  opinion  arose  over  the  question  as  to  what  the 
expiatory  process  should  be.  The  Southern  people 
supposed  that  an  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  United 
States  would  readmit  them  into  its  fellowship ; 
Johnson  took  the  ground  that  all  the  important 
participants  in  the  rebellion  would  be  punished  by 
loss  of  the  suffrage,  until  he  should  restore  the 
privilege  by  individual  pardons ;  Congress  in 
tended  that  it  was  to  decide  what  persons  might 
take  part  in  reviving  the  state  governments,  and 
was  determined  that  the  States  as  communities 
should  be  punished  by  the  imposition  of  humiliat 
ing  conditions  of  restoration.  The  only  logical 
and  consistent  theory  was  that  of  the  Southerners, 
and  that  was  impracticable  because  it  did  not  se 
cure  to  the  country  the  objects  for  which  the  war 
had  been  fought.  Restoration  by  amnesty  was  not 
popular  in  Congress  under  Lincoln,  and  was  im 
possible  under  Johnson.  It  proved  in  the  end  that 
the  only  force  capable  of  settling  the  controversy 
was  the  two-thirds  majority  in  both  houses  of  Con 
gress,  through  which  the  President's  veto  could  be, 
and  was,  relentlessly  overridden.  But  the  process 
was  long  and  heated  :  the  first  stage  ended  in  the 
appointment  of  a  joint  committee  on  reconstruc- 


PROBLEM  OF  RECONSTRUCTION          339 

tion,  and  a  joint  resolution  of  March  2,  1866,  pro 
viding  that  "  no  senator  or  representative  should  be 
admitted  into  either  branch  of  Congress  from  any 
of  the  said  States  until  Congress  should  have  de 
clared  such  State  entitled  to  such  representation." 

In  the  discussion  of  1865-66  Chase  was  rather 
a  spectator  than  an  actor,  but  he  did  not  hesitate 
to  express  his  personal  opinions  on  that  part  of  the 
controversy  which  most  interested  him,  —  the  status 
of  the  freedmen  ;  and  he  was  one  of  the  first  to 
insist  that  no  seceded  State  ought  to  be  admitted 
back  into  the  Union  until  it  had  given  suffrage  to 
negroes.  He  said :  "  It  would  really  be  a  greater 
crime  to  continue  slavery  itself  than  to  leave  the 
only  class  which,  as  a  class,  had  been  loyal,  unpro 
tected  by  the  ballot." 

As  soon  as  it  became  evident  that  Johnson  had 
no  interest  in  negro  suffrage,  and  was  willing  to 
reinstate  by  his  pardoning  power  a  large  proportion 
of  those  who  had  been  concerned  in  the  rebellion, 
Chase  found  himself  separated  from  the  President, 
who  no  longer  invited  an  expression  of  his  opinion. 
At  the  same  time  his  friends  in  the  South  assured 
him  that,  without  protection  from  the  United 
States,  the  Union  men  would  be  completely  over 
borne  and  the  freedmen  in  danger.  For  instance, 
a  correspondent  wrote :  "  Criminal  law  is  a  dead 
law  in  Texas,  and  but  few  troops  are  stationed 
among  us.  As  matters  stand,  Congress  might  de 
clare  every  rebel  to  be  disfranchised,  and  all  would 
vote  at  the  first  election.  Congress  might  by  law 


340  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

.enfranchise  every  freedman,  and  not  a  single  freed- 
man  would  be  permitted  to  vote." 

Chase's  sympathy  now  began  to  turn  toward  the 
congressional  plan,  and  he  especially  approved  the 
Civil  Rights  Act,  passed  over  the  President's  veto, 
April  9,  1866,  which  declared  "  all  persons  born  in 
the  United  States  and  not  subject  to  any  foreign 
power  to  be  citizens  of  the  United  States,"  arid 
provided  for  equality  of  civil  rights.  This  was  a 
legislative  reversal  of  whatever  was  left  of  the  Dred 
Scott  decision ;  and  the  special  machinery  pro 
vided  to  carry  out  the  act  was  a  satirical  adapta 
tion  of  the  clauses  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act  of 
1850,  which  had  aroused  such  an  uproar  among 
anti-slavery  men. 

The  act  was  certain  to  rouse  the  opposition  of 
the  South,  and  was  itself  liable  to  repeal.  It 
seemed  therefore  desirable  to  put  its  provisions 
into  a  constitutional  amendment,  which  would  for 
ever  protect  the  rights  of  the  negroes  and  which 
at  the  same  time  would  take  out  of  the  hands  of 
the  President  the  restoration  of  former  rebels  to 
their  political  status.  This  suggestion  of  another 
amendment  aroused  Chase.  On  April  30,  1866, 
he  wrote  to  Associate  Justice  Field  that  the  pro 
posed  plan  of  congressional  reconstruction  "  seems 
very  well,  provided  it  could  be  carried  out ;  but  I 
am  afraid  that  it  is,  as  people  say,  rather  too  big  a 
contract."  He  thereupon  drew  up  a  brief  amend 
ment,  to  be  "  Article  Fourteen  of  the  Constitution," 
which  provided  that,  in  case  the  suffrage  were  re- 


PROBLEM  OF  RECONSTRUCTION          341 

duced  by  any  State,  the  basis  of  representation 
should  be  correspondingly  reduced,  and  that  no 
debts  should  ever  be  paid  that  had  been  incurred 
in  behalf  of  the  rebellion ;  and  he  proposed  that 
the  ratification  of  this  amendment  should  be  made 
a  condition  of  reconstruction.  Congress  finally 
adopted  these  two  clauses  substantially  as  Chase 
wrote  them  ;  but  it  adhered  to  its  own  clauses  as 
serting  the  citizenship  and  civil  rights  of  the  negroes 
and  granting  Congress  the  power  to  enforce  them  ; 
that  is,  it  put  the  Civil  Rights  Act  into  the  Con 
stitution.  To  Chase's  mind  these  additional  propo 
sitions  were  inexpedient,  because,  as  he  said,  "  it 
seems  to  me  that  nothing  is  gained  sufficiently  im 
portant,  and  unattainable  by  legislation,  to  warrant 
our  friends  in  overloading  the  ship  with  amend 
ment  freight."  Nevertheless,  he  later  applied  the 
amendment  in  its  most  sweeping  form  in  his  dis 
sent  from  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  the 
Slaughter-house  Cases. 

The  continued  holding  of  troops  in  the  South 
had  caused  several  vexed  questions  as  to  the  rela 
tions  between  civil  and  military  authority ;  hence, 
on  April  2,  1866,  Johnson  issued  a  proclamation 
announcing  that  the  war  had  ceased  in  ten  of  the 
seceded  States,  and  on  August  30,  another  procla 
mation  setting  forth  that  it  had  ceased  also  in 
Texas.  The  process  of  reconstruction  was,  how 
ever,  delayed  until  the  next  year,  when  the  elabo 
rate  statutes  of  March  2  and  March  23,  1867, 
established  the  legal  basis  of  reconstruction,  and 


342  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

also  prescribed  the  conditions  of  the  reentrance  of 
the  States  into  the  Union.  The  existing  state 
governments  were  declared  to  be  provisional,  and 
no  State  was  to  be  received  back  until  it  had  es 
tablished  negro  suffrage ;  in  order  to  have  assur 
ance  that  the  States  should  actually  fulfill  these 
conditions,  they  were  for  the  time  being  put  into 
the  hands  of  military  commanders. 

Down  to  the  end  of  1866,  as  we  have  seen, 
Chase's  connection  with  reconstruction  was  that  of 
a  statesman  and  not  that  of  a  judge.  The  strife 
between  President  and  Congress  had,  however,  an 
indirect  influence  on  the  Supreme  Court.  There 
was  an  apprehension  that  the  court  would  take 
sides  ;  and  hence  when  Justice  Catron  died  in  May, 
1865,  and  President  Johnson  nominated  as  his  suc 
cessor  his  Attorney-General,  Mr.  Stanbery,  the  Sen 
ate  declined  to  confirm  the  nomination.  The  fed 
eral  courts  were  just  then  distressed  by  the  serious 
crowding  of  the  circuits,  and  nearly  all  the  justices 
favored  a  pending  bill  for  reorganization  by  add 
ing  new  circuit  judges.  Upon  this  bill  was  tacked 
a  provision  to  reduce  the  number  of  associates  to 
eight,  which  of  course  took  away  the  necessity  for 
an  immediate  appointment  by  Johnson.  The  Sen 
ate  went  even  farther  by  an  amendment  through 
which,  as  vacancies  should  occur,  the  number  of 
associates  was  to  be  reduced  to  six ;  the  purpose 
was  to  put  it  out  of  the  power  of  the  President, 
during  his  whole  term,  to  appoint  any  justices  who 
might  be  favorable  to  his  side  of  the  controversy. 


PROBLEM   OF  RECONSTRUCTION  343 

On  this  proposition  Johnson  did  not  choose  to  take 
issue,  and  it  became  law  July  29,  1866. 

About  the  same  time  the  long-suspended  federal 
courts  began  to  resume  their  sittings  in  the  South 
ern  States.  During  1866  the  federal  district 
judges,  Underwood  and  Brooks  of  Virginia,  Hill 
of  Mississippi,  and  Busteed  of  Alabama,  all  under 
took  to  hold  courts.  As  successor  to  Taney,  Chase's 
circuit  included  Maryland,  Virginia,  and  North 
Carolina  ;  but  even  after  the  President's  proclama 
tions  declaring  the  Civil  War  at  an  end,  he  stead 
fastly  refused  to  hold  any  court  in  Virginia  or 
North  Carolina  "  until  all  possibility  of  claim  that 
the  judicial  is  subordinate  to  the  military  power  is 
removed  by  express  declaration  by  the  President." 

Chase's  attitude  was  practically  an  opinion  that 
the  military  governments  established  by  the  Presi 
dent  were  abnormal ;  and  also  an  indirect  asser 
tion  of  the  supremacy  of  ordinary  tribunals  in  time 
of  peace ;  and  it  reinforced  the  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court  in  the  Vallandigham  Case  of  1864. 
But  in  the  other  Southern  circuits  decisions  were 
made,  and  soon  after  appeals  began  to  be  taken  to 
the  Supreme  Court.  Under  the  judiciary  act  of 
1866,  the  Supreme  Court  justices  had  no  circuit 
jurisdiction  in  the  South  :  but  in  March,  1867,  that 
jurisdiction  was  restored,  and  Chase  soon  after 
assumed  his  functions  at  Raleigh,  and  delivered  an 
opinion  on  June  16,  1867.  The  service  of  process 
under  his  decisions  was  resisted  by  the  military 
authority,  acting  under  orders  from  General  Sickles, 


344  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

the  commander  of  the  department.  Chase  was 
willing  to  force  the  issue  by  direct  prosecution  of 
the  military  officer  concerned ;  but  the  President 
speedily  removed  Sickles,  and  appointed  a  succes 
sor  with  instructions  not  to  interfere  with  the  pro 
cesses  of  the  court:  and  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
federal  courts  within  the  States  lately  in  rebellion 
was  not  again  brought  into  question. 

While  the  contest  between  Johnson  and  Con 
gress  was  reaching  its  height,  during  1866  and 
1867,  the  Supreme  Court  at  last  began  to  prove  its 
vitality  in  a  series  of  decisions  which  involved 
questions  arising  out  of  the  Civil  War.  Within 
four  months  six  cases  were  decided,  in  four  of 
which  the  court  took  jurisdiction,  and  stood  forth 
once  more  as  an  arbiter  between  the  States  and  the 
nation,  if  not  between  the  other  two  departments 
of  the  federal  government.  The  first  of  these 
cases,  Ex  parte  Milligan,  in  the  term  of  Decem 
ber,  1866,  gave  the  desired  opportunity  to  reassert 
the  right  of  the  court  to  be  the  expounder  of  the 
Constitution,  for  it  traversed  the  authority  of  the 
unpopular  military  commissions  at  a  time  when 
their  necessity  was  past.  L.  P.  Milligan  was  ar 
rested  in  Indiana  in  October,  1864,  under  color  of 
the  act  of  March  3,  1863,  authorizing  the  suspen 
sion  of  habeas  cor/ms,  an  act  which  had  already 
been  held  void  by  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  case 
of  Gerder  v.  the  U.  S.  (1864-65)  so  far  as  ap 
peals  from  the  Court  of  Claims  were  concerned. 
He  was  duly  tried  by  a  military  commission,  and 


PROBLEM  OF  RECONSTRUCTION          345 

sentenced  to  be  hanged.  Lincoln  approved  the 
finding,  but  execution  was  delayed,  and  hostilities 
soon  after  ceased.  In  May,  1865,  Milligan  ap 
pealed  to  the  Circuit  Court  for  a  writ  of  habeas 
corpus,  which  would  raise  the  question  of  jurisdic 
tion.  The  circuit  judges  disagreed  and  referred 
the  case  to  the  Supreme  Court ;  but  the  case  was 
long  held  under  advisement,  and  the  decision  was 
not  announced  till  December,  1866.  The  fact  that 
James  A.  Garfield  took  up  Milligan's  cause  with 
spirit  and  force,  and  argued  the  case  as  his  counsel 
before  the  Supreme  Court,  was  a  sufficient  proof 
that  the  whole  system  of  military  courts  was  un 
popular  ;  and  the  behavior  of  the  commission  ap 
pointed  to  try  Lincoln's  murderers  in  May,  1865, 
had  not  increased  public  confidence  in  that  arbi 
trary  kind  of  justice. 

In  the  decision  of  the  appeal  by  the  Supreme 
Court,  all  the  nine  justices  agreed  that  the  com 
mission  which  had  tried  Milligan  had  no  jurisdic 
tion  under  the  terms  of  the  statute,  and  therefore 
ordered  him  to  be  discharged  and  the  proceedings 
of  the  military  court  to  be  nullified.  But  a  fun 
damental  and  nearly  evenly  balanced  difference  of 
opinion  was  revealed  on  an  important  principle ; 
for  five  judges  held  that  Congress  could  not  au 
thorize  such  tribunals  in  regions  where  the  civil 
courts  were  open,  while  Chase  and  three  of  his  fel 
lows  held  the  contrary.  Though  Chase  at  that 
time  gave  no  evidence  of  a  desire  that  the  court 
exercise  restraint  over  the  legislative  power  of  Con- 


346  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

gress,  the  decision  was  everywhere  accepted  as  the 
triumph  of  the  civil  over  the  military  power,  even 
during  war.  The  reign  of  military  law  within  the 
Northern  States  was  at  last  over. 

This  famous  decision  has  so  long  been  recognized 
as  a  public  service  that  it  is  difficult  to  realize  the 
storm  of  unpopularity  which  fell  upon  the  court. 
According  to  the  New  York  "  Independent,"  the 
decision  restored  the  court  "  to  the  proud  eminence 
it  occupied  when  Taney  directed  its  decrees."  The 
"  National  Anti-Slavery  Standard "  declared  that 
"  an  alliance,  offensive  and  defensive,  has  at  length 
been  favorably  concluded  between  the  Supreme 
Court  and  the  President ;  "  and  Wendell  Phillips 
proposed  that  the  court  be  abolished  out  of  hand, 
for  "  the  nation  must  be  saved,  no  matter  what  or 
how  venerable  the  foe  whose  existence  goes  down 
before  that  necessity." 

A  few  days  later,  January  14,  1867,  the  court 
held  void  a  clause  of  a  state  constitution,  in  the 
so-called  "Test  oath"  cases  (Cummings  v.  Mis 
souri  and  In  re  Garland).  Arguments  had  been 
heard  many  months  earlier,  and  Chase  appears  to 
have  interested  himself  in  postponing  the  decision 
for  the  time  being.  Nevertheless,  somehow  John 
son  learned  or  supposed  that  the  court  had  come 
to  a  decision  against  the  validity  of  the  oaths,  for 
he  publicly  stated  in  the  campaign  of  1866  that 
his  own  opinion  on  that  subject  had  their  concur 
rence. 

The  point  in  the  Cummings  Case  was  the  validity 

A"  ^. 


PROBLEM  OF  RECONSTRUCTION          347 

of  a  retrospective  oath  of  loyalty  imposed  by  the 
radical  Missouri  Constitution  of  1864,  under  which 
any  person,  who  had  "  by  act  or  word  "  manifested 
sympathy  with  those  engaged  in  rebellion,  was  dis 
franchised  and  excluded  from  public  office,  from 
office  in  any  corporation,  and  from  the  practice  of 
any  profession.  This  enactment  was  applied  to 
Curnmings  to  prevent  him  from  officiating  as  a 
Catholic  priest.  It  was  defended  as  the  act  of  a 
State  possessing  "  attributes  of  sovereignty,"  and 
it  was  a  problem  to  find  constitutional  limitations 
which  would  annul  this  disagreeable  clause  in  the 
Missouri  Constitution,  and  yet  leave  no  loophole  of 
escape  from  the  philanthropic  articles  of  the  con 
stitutions  of  the  reconstructed  States.  Five  judges, 
the  bare  majority  of  the  court,  found  the  desired 
limitations  in  the  constitutional  prohibitions  of  ex 
post  facto  laws  and  bills  of  attainder.  From  this 
conclusion  Chase  dissented,  together  with  Swayne, 
Miller,  and  Davis,  all  four  appointees  of  Lincoln ; 
their  ground  was  mainly  that  the  ex  post  facto 
clause  applied  only  to  criminal  cases  and  not  to 
civil  disabilities. 

The  Garland  Case  turned  on  the  validity  of  an 
act  of  Congress  of  January  14,  1865,  which  im 
posed  a  test  oath  for  attorneys  before  the  Supreme 
Court.  Garland  had  been  admitted  as  a  coun 
selor  before  the  war,  but  now  found  himself  ex 
cluded,  although  he  had  fortified  himself  with  a 
pardon  from  the  President.  The  majority  of  the 
court  held  that  it  was  not  in  the  power  of  Congress 


348  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

to  stretch  its  power  of  prescribing  qualifications 
for  attorneys  so  as  to  make  it  "  a  means  for  the 
infliction  of  punishment,  against  the  prohibition  of 
the  Constitution,"  or  "to  inflict  punishment  be 
yond  the  reach  of  executive  clemency."  Again 
Chase  and  his  three  fellows  dissented,  partly  on 
legal  grounds,  and  partly  from  the  political  reason 
that  uto  suffer  treasonable  sentiments  to  spread 
here  unchecked  is  to  permit  the  stream  on  which 
the  life  of  the  nation  depends  to  be  poisoned  at  its 
source."  They  held  also  that  the  President's  par 
don  could  not  relieve  from  a  qualification,  though 
it  might  from  a  punishment. 

The  significance  of  these  cases  is  not  only  that 
all  the  older  judges  united  in  annulling,  on  narrow 
and  technical  grounds,  provisions  of  a  state  Con 
stitution  and  of  a  federal  statute,  but  also  that  the 
decision  suggested  to  Congress  what  might  be  ex 
pected  when  the  pending  reconstruction  acts  came 
up  for  judicial  examination.  Within  a  few  weeks 
efforts  were  made  to  stop  the  execution  of  those 
acts,  which  had  passed  Congress  by  two-thirds 
majorities,  in  the  face  of  hostile  veto  messages,  in 
which  Johnson  had  freely  declared  them  unconsti 
tutional.  The  statutes  by  which  existing  state 
governments  were  placed  under  military  control 
were  assailed  by  Governor  Humphrey  of  Mississippi, 
who  through  his  attorney,  Kobert  J.  Walker,  asked 
for  an  injunction  to  restrain  President  Johnson 
from  carrying  out  the  statutes  in  Mississippi ;  by 
this  proceeding  troublesome  preliminaries  of  cases 


PROBLEM   OF   RECONSTRUCTION          349 

brought  slowly  from  the  lower  courts  might  be 
avoided,  and  a  decision  might  almost  be  forced 
from  the  Supreme  Court.  The  petitioner  argued 
that  no  penalties  or  disabilities  could  be  laid  upon 
the  State  as  such,  but  only  upon  individuals  who 
might  have  violated  the  laws  of  the  United  States ; 
and  he  thus  brought  up  the  whole  question  of  the 
status  of  the  seceded  States.  The  President  had 
no  wish  to  raise  a  contest  on  that  issue,  and  there 
fore  the  Attorney-General .  objected  to  the  injunc 
tion  ;  indeed,  the  case  was  without  precedent,  since 
this  was  the  first  attempt  in  the  history  of  the  court 
to  make  the  President  party  of  record  to  a  suit 
before  the  Supreme  Court.  The  brief  decision 
rendered  April  15, 1867,  took  the  sagacious  ground 
that  the  duties  imposed  by  the  act  were  "  purely 
executive  and  political ;  "  and,  without  a  dissent, 
the  court  declined  to  assume  jurisdiction,  and  left 
the  President  and  Congress  to  settle  their  own 
differences. 

Another  suit  was  pending,  however,  in  which 
the  authorities  of  the  State  of  Georgia  asked  for 
an  injunction,  not  against  the  President,  but  against 
the  Secretary  of  War,  and  for  this  form  of  action 
there  were  precedents.  President  Johnson  had  his 
own  reasons  for  unwillingness  to  protect  Stanton, 
and  interposed  no  objection.  The  court,  therefore, 
gave  renewed  consideration  to  the  issue,  but  ad 
hered  to  the  principle  of  the  first  case.  Notwith 
standing  the  excitement  of  the  secretary,  and  the 
widespread  belief  that  the  remedy  sought  would  be 


350  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

granted  by  a  majority  of  five  to  four  as  in  the  Mil- 
ligan  case,  the  case  was  dismissed  on  May  15, 1867, 
upon  the  ground  that  it  was  a  political  question 
which  could  not  be  settled  by  a  court.  Some 
thoughtful  men,  who  had  expected  to  see  a  check 
applied  to  the  rising  power  of  Congress,  exclaimed 
in  despair  that  "  no  State  in  the  Union  could  rely 
upon  the  protection  of  the  Supreme  Court." 

The  end  had  not  yet  been  reached  ;  another  case 
was  now  presented,  in  which  the  parties  were  not 
executives  of  State  or  nation,  in  which  the  point 
involved  was  supposed  to  be  the  same  as  that  in 
the  Milligan  case,  and  yet  which  brought  up  the 
validity  of  the  reconstruction  acts.  Colonel  Mc- 
Cardle,  the  editor  of  a  Vicksburg  paper,  was 
brought  by  the  military  commander  of  the  district 
before  a  military  commission  on  the  charge  of  pub 
lishing  insurrectionary  articles.  Application  was 
made  to  Judge  Hill  of  the  United  States  Circuit 
Court  to  grant  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  by  which 
the  authority  of  this  extra-judicial  tribunal  might 
be  tested.  Hill  asserted  the  constitutionality  of 
the  commission,  but  appeal  was  taken  to  the  Su 
preme  Court,  and  speedily  argued  before  it.  In 
December,  1867,  that  body,  in  preliminary  pro 
ceedings,  asserted  its  jurisdiction,  but  argument  on 
the  principle  involved  was  postponed  till  the  next 
term.  The  question  was  now  distinctly  presented 
of  the  power  to  pass  statutes  authorizing  trials  by 
military  commissions  after  the  official  announce 
ment  that  no  war  was  going  on ;  and  no  one  could 
predict  the  decision. 


PROBLEM  OF  RECONSTRUCTION          351 

Until  after  the  impeachment  of  Johnson  in 
1868,  the  court  made  no  more  great  constitutional 
decisions ;  it  never  had  to  decide  a  fundamental 
case  of  freedom  under  the  Emancipation  Procla 
mation,  or  even  under  the  Thirteenth  Amendment ; 
and  none  of  the  legal  questions  of  treason  reached 
it.  But  to  Chase,  as  judge  in  a  Southern  circuit, 
came  the  opportunity  by  a  judicial  decree  to  strike 
the  bonds  from  a  large  number  of  helpless  Afri 
cans.  At  the  time  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  in 
Maryland,  in  1864,  Elizabeth  Turner  was  immedi 
ately  bound  as  apprentice  to  her  former  master. 
This  indenture,  servile  in  terms,  and  forced  on  a 
defenseless  child,  Chase  had  the  satisfaction  to  de 
clare  void,  on  two  grounds :  because  it  established 
a  modified  form  of  slavery,  contrary  to  the  Thir 
teenth  Amendment ;  and  also  because  it  violated 
the  Civil  Rights  Act  of  1866,  which  assured  equal 
legal  privileges  to  negroes  and  whites.  The  ap 
prentice  decision  attracted  wide  discussion,  and 
General  Howard  reported  that  it  brought  about 
the  release  of  a  large  number  of  children  held 
in  virtual  slavery.  It  was  also  a  notice  to  the 
Southern  States  that  their  offensive  vagrant  laws 
of  1865  and  1866  would  not  stand  before  the  fed 
eral  courts. 

The  fact  that  Chase's  circuit  included  the  former 
seat  of  the  Confederate  government  brought  within 
his  jurisdiction  the  prosecutions  for  treason  against 
former  officials  of  that  government.  At  the  end 
of  the  war,  under  Stan  ton's  authority,  writs  were 


352  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

issued  for  the  arrest  of  the  principal  military  and 
civil  leaders,  including  both  Lee  and  Davis ;  and 
though  General  Grant  interfered  effectively  to  pre 
vent  the  arrest  of  the  .military  commanders,  Jeffer 
son  Davis  was  confined  in  Fortress  Monroe  from 
1865  to  1867,  and  remained  under  indictment  till 
1869.  If  the  war  was  to  be  followed  by  criminal 
trials  for  treason,  a  clearer  case  than  his  could  not 
be  made  out,  and  President  Johnson  was  at  first  anx 
ious  that  Davis  be  put  on  his  trial ;  so  that  Chase 
seemed  likely  to  have  an  opportunity  to  expound 
the  law  of  treason,  such  as  Marshall  had  in  the 
Burr  Case. 

From  the  first,  Chase  disliked  the  prospect :  that 
Davis's  acts  were  treasonable  he  never  doubted,  and 
he  must  have  so  ruled  had  there  ever  been  a  trial ; 
but  he  thought  that  a  military  commission  was  the 
suitable  tribunal ;  and  by  1867  he  was  out  of  har 
mony  with  Johnson,  whose  Attorney-General  must 
direct  the  preliminaries  of  a  prosecution.  So  long, 
therefore,  as  military  rule  continued  in  the  South, 
Chase  declined  to  hold  any  court  for  the  trial  of 
Davis  on  indictments  found  in  Virginia.  Another 
indictment  found  in  the  District  of  Columbia  was 
inadequate ;  and  the  trial  hung  fire,  even  after  the 
President's  proclamation  of  1866,  declaring  the 
war  at  an  end,  and  notwithstanding  resolutions  in 
Congress  demanding  prosecution.  In  May,  1867, 
the  President  definitely  threw  the  responsibility  on 
the  judiciary,  by  allowing  the  military  custodian  to 
surrender  Davis  to  the  custody  of  the  federal  court 


PROBLEM  OF  RECONSTRUCTION          353 

under  a  habeas  corpus  issued  by  Chase.  At  last 
there  seemed  a  prospect  of  a  trial ;  but  when  Davis 
appeared  in  court  for  the  first  time,  Chase  refused 
to  sit,  and  Davis  was  admitted  to  bail  by  Judge 
Underwood. 

By  this  time  it  was  plain  that  the  chief  justice 
had  no  heart  in  the  prosecution,  that  the  adminis- 
istration  would  not  urge  it,  and  that  Northern 
men  saw  no  advantage  in  making  a  martyr  of  the 
President  of  the  Confederacy.  The  trial  was,  by 
agreement,  postponed  from  term  to  term,  till  No 
vember,  1868.  Then  for  the  first  time  Chase  sat 
as  judge  in  the  court ;  but  Davis's  counsel  set  up 
the  plea  that  their  client  was  one  of  those  included 
in  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  (which  had  just 
gone  into  effect),  and  that  the  penalties  there  enu 
merated  took  the  place  of  any  previously  incurred 
penalties  for  treason.  The  plea  seems  far-fetched, 
but  Chase  approved  it.  The  regular  circuit  judge, 
probably  by  arrangement,  took  the  other  side,  and 
the  court  certified  its  divergence  up  to  the  Su 
preme  Court  for  settlement  there.  A  few  days  later, 
however,  December  25,  1868,  President  Johnson 
issued  a  proclamation  of  general  amnesty,  and  at 
the  next  term  the  circuit  judge  discharged  Davis 
on  the  ground  that  he  was  included  in  that  pardon. 
The  Supreme  Court  did  not  interfere,  and  thus 
ended  the  great  treason  case,  with  no  trial  on  its 
merits. 

Though  fiercely  assailed  at  the  time  for  his 
lukewarmness,  and  though  accused  of  favoring 


354  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

Davis  as  a  means  of  making  friends  with  the 
Southern  Democrats,  Chase  performed  a  public 
service  by  delaying  a  trial ;  the  release  of  Davis 
made  the  Confederate  leader  harmless,  and  he  could 
never  have  been  convicted  in  Virginia  without  pack 
ing  the  jury.  By  this  time  all  the  country  was  ad 
justed  to  the  principle  of  the  reconstruction  acts,  — 
that  the  South  was  to  be  punished  by  penalties  on 
the  States  as  communities,  and  not  by  executing  in 
dividuals  ''''pour  encourager  les  autres." 

The  year  1867  was  not  a  favorable  time  for  the 
Supreme  Court  to  emphasize  its  authority  to  re 
view  acts  of  Congress.  The  two-thirds  majority 
of  that  body  relentlessly  overrode  the  President's 
vetoes,  and  was  in  no  temper  to  be  restrained  by 
a  court.  It  was  remembered  that  in  1802  Congress 
had  disposed  of  a  hostile  judiciary  by  a  statute  dis 
solving  some  of  the  courts,  and  thus  depriving  the 
judges  of  their  places ;  and  that  the  whole  ma 
chinery  of  appeals  was  fixed  by  revocable  acts  of 
Congress.  Suggestions  were  promptly  made  in 
Congress  that  unfavorable  decisions  by  the  Su 
preme  Court  might  be  prevented  by  resolute  legis 
lation,  and  members  complained  that  the  judges 
were  "  too  apt  to  turn  their  attention  back  in 
search  of  some  stale  precedent  of  the  dark  ages." 
It  was  supposed  that  Justice  Wayne  of  Georgia 
was  arbiter  between  two  factions  of  four  judges 
each,  and  that  his  sympathies  were  with  the  presi 
dential  policy ;  still  he  had  shown  remarkable  im 
partiality  during  the  Civil  War,  and  but  for  his 


PROBLEM   OF  RECONSTRUCTION          355 

death  in  1867  he  would  probably  have  backed  up 
the  congressional  theory. 

When  Congress  assembled  in  December,  1867, 
one  of  the  first  questions  to  come  before  it  was 
that  of  the  Supreme  Court.  An  early  bill  pro 
posed  that  two  thirds  of  the  entire  court  must  con 
cur  in  deciding  adversely  on  the  constitutionality 
of  any  law  of  the  United  States  ;  another  plan 
required  unanimous  agreement  in  such  cases.  Al 
though  men  like  Simmer  supported  this  extrava 
gant  proposition,  it  finally  gave  way  to  a  bill  taking 
away  part  of  the  appellate  jurisdiction,  the  purpose 
being  to  prevent  the  further  consideration  of  the 
McCardle  case.  Schenck  of  Ohio  supported  the 
measure,  because,  as  he  said,  "  I  have  lost  confi 
dence  in  the  majority  of  the  Supreme  Court.  I 
believe  that  they  usurp  power  whenever  they  dare 
to  undertake  to  settle  questions  purely  political." 
It  passed  both  Houses,  and  though  the  President  at 
once  interposed  his  veto,  in  March,  1868,  it  was 
carried  over  his  head.  When  at  the  next  term  of 
the  court,  McCardle's  case  came  up,  the  court 
wisely  held  that  its  jurisdiction  had  been  removed : 
as  Chase  expressed  it  in  his  opinion,  "  Judicial  duty 
is  not  less  fully  performed  by  declining  ungranted 
jurisdiction  than  by  exercising  firmly  that  which 
the  Constitution  and  the  laws  conferred." 

Notwithstanding  the  panic  in  Congress,  there 
seems  little  reason  to  suppose  that  the  court  would 
have  thrown  the  process  of  reconstruction  into  con 
fusion  by  holding  the  main  acts  unconstitutional. 


356  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

It  is  alleged  that  Justice  Field  told  his  friends  that 
in  the  court's  opinion  the  acts  were  unconstitu 
tional  ;  if  it  were  so,  Chase  took  care  that  no  such 
opinion  should  be  pronounced.  On  August  7, 1867, 
he  wrote  to  General  Garfield  :  "  The  country  is  well 
satisfied  with  the  action  of  Congress,  not,  I  think, 
that  the  people  want  a  continuance  of  military  au 
thority,  but  because  they  want  restoration  on  solid 
and  just  foundation  as  soon  as  possible  —  the  Presi 
dent  must  yield  to  the  People ;  or  the  People  will 
take  up  and  put  through  impeachment." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE   SECOND   STAGE   OF   RECONSTRUCTION 

THROUGHOUT  the  first  stage  of  reconstruction, 
Chase's  attitude  had  been  dignified  and  his  influ 
ence  conservative  and  conciliatory :  he  had  done 
his  best  to  restrain  Johnson  from  excess ;  he  had 
as  circuit  judge,  and  as  judge  in  the  Supreme 
Court,  thrown  his  influence  against  technical  deci 
sions  ;  he  had  allowed  the  method  of  congressional 
reconstruction  to  go  on  untroubled  to  the  end. 
The  Southern  States  duly  paid  the  price  of  their 
readmission  by  ratifying  the  Fourteenth  Amend 
ment,  and  from  1868  they  were  gradually  allowed 
to  reoccupy  seats  in  Congress.  But  the  struggle 
between  the  President  and  Congress  had  grown  so 
bitter  that  it  was  determined  to  remove  Johnson 
from  his  office,  though  his  term  had  but  a  few 
months  longer  to  run,  and  though  there  was  not 
the  slightest  danger  of  his  reelection.  His  vio 
lence,  even  when  he  was  in  the  right,  had  weak 
ened  him  beyond  any  power  of  harm,  and  the 
relentless  two-thirds  majority  in  Congress  could 
override  him  at  will ;  impeachment  was  unneces 
sary,  and  therefore  tactless.  The  issue  finally 
selected  was  that  he  should  be  impeached  for  a 


358  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

violation  of  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act,  passed  to 
curb  him  in  March,  1867.  In  August,  1867,  John 
son  removed  Secretary  Stanton,  and  designated 
General  Grant  as  secretary  ad  interim.  When 
at  the  next  session  of  Congress  in  December, 
1867,  the  Senate  refused  to  assent  to  the  removal, 
Stanton,  according  to  the  terms  of  the  statute,  was 
restored  to  his  office ;  but  Johnson  refused  to  ac 
knowledge  him,  and  took  some  steps  to  make  up 
a  test  case  for  the  Supreme  Court.  Within  two 
days  a  resolution  of  impeachment  passed  the 
House,  and  in  March,  1868,  the  Senate  began  to 
sit  as  a  court  of  impeachment. 

For  the  first  time  in  the  nation's  history  had 
come  about  the  impeachment  of  a  president,  a 
proceeding  in  which  the  Constitution  designates 
the  chief  justice  to  preside  over  the  Senate.  Not 
withstanding  his  judicial  office  and  his  special 
function  as  presiding  officer,  Chase  did  not  conceal 
his  strong  opinion  that  the  trial  was  impolitic  and 
unjust.  Although  his  friend  Ashley  had  been  the 
first  to  urge  impeachment,  Chase  could  not  share 
in  the  violent  antipathies  of  Congress ;  for  his 
personal  relations  with  Johnson  had  not  been  un 
friendly,  and  he  could  see  clearly  the  danger  of  the 
supremacy  of  Congress  if  it  succeeded  in  remov 
ing  a  President.  Nor  is  it  likely  that  he  looked 
forward  with  pleasure  to  the  prospects  of  his  old 
rival,  Benjamin  F.  Wade,  then  president  of  the 
Senate,  and  hence  next  in  succession  to  the  vice- 
president.  A  few  days  after  the  end  of  the  trial, 


SECOND   STAGE  OF  RECONSTRUCTION    359 

he  expressed  in  a  letter  to  Greeley  sentiments 
which  had  been  sufficiently  evident  throughout  the 
proceedings :  "  I  was  against  impeachment  as  a 
policy  —  so  were  you  ;  my  strong  impressions  were 
against  the  sufficiency  of  the  article  and  the  proof 
to  warrant  conviction  and  these  impressions  have 
gradually  ripened  into  beliefs." 

From  the  first,  the  Senate  felt  uneasy  at  his  par 
ticipation,  and,  before  organizing  under  his  presi 
dency,  drew  up  a  set  of  rules  to  govern  the  trial. 
When,  on  March  6,  Chase  was  notified  to  attend, 
he  properly  protested  against  any  official  action  of 
the  Senate  upon  the  impeachment  without  his  pre 
sence  ;  and  he  insisted  that  the  rules  should  be 
adopted  by  the  Senate  as  a  court,  before  going 
farther.  As  soon  as  the  trial  had  fairly  begun,  it 
became  evident  that  it  was  the  intention  of  the 
leaders  to  deny  the  chief  justice  any  real  part  in 
the  proceedings  ;  they  therefore  maintained  that 
the  Senate  did  not  sit  as  a  court,  and  hence  was 
not  bound  by  legal  procedure  and  principles  of 
evidence.  Against  this  assertion  Chase  set  him 
self  with  effect ;  and  he  successfully  used  his  right 
to  act,  not  simply  as  a  moderator,  but  as  the  pre 
siding  judge  in  the  tribunal.  When  the  question 
of  the  admissibility  of  evidence  came  up,  he  de 
cided  upon  his  own  motion,  subject  to  the  revision 
of  the  Senate  if  a  vote  were  demanded ;  and  the 
Senate  did  not  know  how  to  avoid  his  action.  An 
understanding  had  been  reached  among  the  radical 
Republicans  that,  on  the  first  attempt  of  Chase  to 


360  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

vote  upon  a  tie,  a  rule  should  be  passed  against 
him  ;  but  the  first  tie  arose  unexpectedly  on  a 
question  of  the  retirement  of  the  Senate  for  con 
sultation,  and  instantly  Chase  added  his  vote  in 
favor  of  adjournment,  and  declared  the  session 
closed. 

From  this  time  it  was  evident  that  Chase  could 
not  be  set  aside.  His  moderating  influence  aroused 
the  wrath  of  Thaddeus  Stevens,  who  said  in  the 
course  of  the  trial :  "  It  is  the  meanest  case,  be 
fore  the  meanest  tribunal,  and  on  the  meanest  sub 
ject  of  human  history."  Party  feeling  ran  high. 
It  was  known  that  some  of  the  Republican  sena 
tors  would  not  support  the  impeachment,  and 
Chase  drew  upon  himself  the  anger  of  the  disap 
pointed  radicals.  He  was  even  accused,  notwith 
standing  his  positive  denial,  of  personally  solicit 
ing  votes  for  acquittal.  On  the  contrary,  he  failed 
to  gauge  the  play  of  feeling,  and  was  surprised,  on 
the  test  vote  of  May  16,  to  see  that  seven  Repub 
lican  senators  voted  for  acquittal,  and  that  the  op 
ponents  of  Johnson  thus  lacked  one  vote  of  the 
necessary  two  thirds.  At  no  time  in  his  life  did 
he  show  more  calmness,  good  judgment,  and  fore 
sight  than  in  the  impeachment  trial ;  and  for  his 
effort  to  raise  the  proceedings  above  a  partisan  in 
vestigation,  and  to  hold  them  to  their  proper  char 
acter  of  a  judicial  process,  he  deserves  the  credit 
of  averting  a  great  public  danger.  Though  he 
had  no  vote,  and  little  opportunity  for  direct  inter 
ference,  the  weight  of  his  character,  his  reputation 


SECOND   STAGE   OF   RECONSTRUCTION    3G1 

as  an  anti-slavery  man,  and  his  great  office  were 
thrown  into  the  conservative  side  of  the  nearly 
evenly  balanced  scale. 

It  was  unfortunate  for  Chase,  that,  even  while 
the  trial  was  going  on,  he  permitted  his  friends 
again  to  urge  him  for  the  presidency.  In  his 
service  as  chief  justice  he  had  an  excellent  oppor 
tunity  to  show  his  powers  as  a  constitutional  law 
yer;  and  the  decisions  of  the  court  during  that 
period,  on  both  public  and  private  law,  were  nof 
inferior  to  those  of  the  previous  decade.  Had  he 
withdrawn  altogether  from  political  strife,  his 
motives  on  the  bench  would  have  been  unassail 
able  ;  but  from  the  moment  he  sought  the  presi 
dency  he  could  not  escape  the  suspicion  that  his 
decisions  had  been  influenced  by  his  conception  of 
their  effect  upon  his  political  chances. 

In  the  four  years  of  his  chief-justiceship,  Chase 
had  never  lost  sight  of  the  Republican  nomination 
of  1868.  One  reason  was,  that  he  did  not  feel  an 
absorbing  interest  in  the  work  of  a  judge.  "  The 
office  is  dignified,"  said  he  in  1868  ;  "  I  enjoy 
many  things  in  the  work,  but  I  confess  that  my 
own  mind  is  executive  rather  than  judicial.  I 
should  prefer  to  conduct  affairs  in  the  way  that 
seems  to  me  wisest,  rather  than  to  decide  on  mat 
ters  that  are  past ;  "  and  very  soon  after  his  induc 
tion  he  wrote  :  "  Working  from  morning  till  mid 
night,  and  no  result,  except  that  John  Smith  owned 
this  parcel  of  land  or  other  property  instead  of 
Jacob  Robinson ;  I  caring  nothing,  and  nobody 


362  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

caring  much  more,  about  the  matter."  For  several 
years  it  seemed  doubtful  whether  the  Supreme 
Court  under  Chase  would  recover  its  great  po 
sition  as  a  national  arbiter ;  while  the  opportuni 
ties  for  distinction  to  a  vigorous  and  commanding 
President  were  never  more  alluring. 

To  blame  Chase  for  desiring  to  be  President  is 
to  blame  him  for  being  what  he  was  :  conscious  of 
his  own  great  abilities,  he  felt  that  he  had  never 
had  a  full  opportunity  to  show  his  powers  ;  and  he 
was  extremely  sensitive  to  the  opinion  of  those 
about  him,  and  desired  the  highest  approval  that 
could  be  given.  He  would  have  been  a  greater 
judge  and  a  happier  man  without  this  unsatisfied 
ambition  ;  he  would  have  left  a  greater  reputation 
had  he  set  Marshall  before  his  mind  as  a  model 
rather  than  Washington ;  and  all  our  national 
experience  had  shown  how  unsettling  to  the  man 
and  to  the  court  is  the  ambition  of  a  judge  for  po 
litical  office.  But  Chase  was  a  great  man  who  had 
played  a  great  part,  and  the  quality  of  his  ambi 
tion  can  only  be  settled  by  an  ethical  inquiry  into 
his  motives.  As  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Repub 
lican  party,  which,  in  his  own  judgment,  owed  him 
loyal  support,  Chase  felt  that  he  was  the  legiti 
mate  candidate  for  its  nomination  in  1868  ;  and 
no  other  civilian  of  equal  abilities  and  reputa 
tion  was  suggested.  Seward  had  lost  reputation 
in  the  cabinets  of  both  Lincoln  and  Johnson,  and 
none  of  the  senators  stood  forth  preeminent.  By 
1867,  however,  it  became  evident  that  the  party 


SECOND   STAGE  OF  RECONSTRUCTION    363 

might  look  for  a  military  candidate,  and  against 
sueli  a  nomination  Chase  threw  himself  with  all 
his  strength,  not  only  because  he  desired  to  be  Pre 
sident,  but  because  he  felt  the  danger  of  electing 
military  heroes. 

He  did  not  hesitate  to  put  himself  forward  in 
the  presidential  struggle,  and  to  follow  the  same 
methods  as  in  the  three  previous  preliminary  cam 
paigns.  In  1866  his  supporters  began  to  suggest 
to  him  that  the  time  had  come  to  organize,  and  in 
June  and  July,  1867,  he  sent  a  confidential  friend 
to  sound  the  Republicans  in  the  West ;  he  was 
pleased  to  be  told  that  Illinois,  Wisconsin,  Iowa, 
and  Missouri  could  be  counted  for  him,  and  that 
there  was  a  strong  feeling  against  Grant,  who 
loomed  up  as  the  probable  military  candidate. 
But,  just  as  in  1856,  1860,  and  1864,  Chase  was 
compelled  to  face  the  fact  that  he  roused  no  enthu 
siasm  among  the  people,  and  that  he  had  no  strong 
friends  among  the  leading  politicians  or  public  men 
who  would  or  could  prepare  the  way  for  him.  Dur 
ing  1867  and  early  1868  the  current  ran  against 
him,  and  in  March,  1868,  at  about  the  beginning 
of  the  impeachment  trial,  he  threw  up  the  contest, 
and  assumed  "  only  the  interest  of  a  citizen  who 
loves  his  country,  and  desires  earnestly  the  speedi 
est  possible  restoration."  It  had  by  this  time 
become  evident,  not  only  that  General  Grant 
would  be  nominated  by  the  Republicans,  but  that 
he  must  be  so  nominated  unless  they  were  willing 
that  he  should  be  the  candidate  of  the  Democrats. 


364  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

After  the  persistent  efforts  to  make  Chase  the 
Republican  nominee,  it  seemed  to  many  of  his 
friends  almost  treasonable  that  within  a  few  weeks 
he  should  be  seeking  the  Democratic  nomination. 
Nothing  in  Chase's  life  has  caused  such  fierce  crit 
icism,  and  nothing  has  done  so  much  to  diminish 
a  well-earned  reputation  for  sagacity,  patriotism, 
and  consistency,  as  his  desire  for  that  nomination. 
But,  however  faulty  Chase's  judgment,  and  however 
lame  his  logic,  his  course  is  not  indefensible.  His 
own  explanation  was  loss  of  confidence  in  his  old 
party.  "  I  cannot  approve  in  general,"  he  wrote  in 
September,  1868,  "  of  what  the  Republican  party 
has  done.  ...  I  hold  my  old  faith  in  universal  suf 
frage,  in  reconstruction  upon  that  basis,  in  univer 
sal  amnesty,  and  in  inviolate  public  faith  ;  but  I  do 
not  believe  in  military  government  for  American 
States,  nor  in  military  commissions  for  the  trial  of 
American  citizens,  nor  in  the  subversion  of  the 
executive  and  judicial  departments  of  the  general 
government  by  Congress,  no  matter  how  patriotic 
the  motive  may  be."  To  be  sure,  he  had  just 
eagerly  sought  the  support  of  this  faulty  organiza 
tion  ;  but  Chase  always  overestimated  the  influ 
ence  which  he  might  have  as  President  in  directing 
and  moderating  his  party,  and  his  indictment  of 
Congress  was  justified  by  the  intention  of  the  lead 
ers  to  make  that  body  supreme  over  both  Presi 
dent  and  Supreme  Court. 

Neither  the  question  of  the  form  of  government, 
nor  even  the  question  of  the  reconstruction  of  the 


SECOND  STAGE   OF  RECONSTRUCTION    365 

States,  was  the  issue  in  1868.  In  Congress,  in 
terest  bad  been  transferred  from  tbe  disabilities  of 
the  Southern  whites  to  the  possibilities  of  govern 
ment  under  negro  suffrage  ;  and  the  Republican 
party,  with  Chase  as  one  of  its  leaders,  stood  in 
the  public  eye  as  the  defenders  of  the  freedom,  the 
equal  rights,  and  the  political  privileges  of  the 
negroes.  How  could  he  put  himself  into  relations 
with  a  party  whose  traditional  tenets  were  against 
negro  equality  in  any  form?  The  chief  justice 
found  himself  denounced  in  savage  terms  by  his 
old  anti-slavery  associates  for  one  moment  trusting 
Democrats  to  do  justice  to  the  negro.  In  his 
mind,  however,  had  always  lain  the  belief  that  the 
Democratic  party  had  by  nature  anti-slavery  prin 
ciples.  Now  in  1868  the  Democrats  in  the  North 
were  humbled  and  discouraged,  and  the  Democrats 
of  the  South  were  disfranchised  or  reduced  to  im 
potence.  Some  of  the  shrewdest  leaders,  among 
them  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  favored  a  new  departure, 
in  which  the  party  should  accept  the  results  of  the 
war,  including  the  new  conditions  of  the  South, 
as  accomplished  facts,  and  should  make  a  stand 
against  the  threatened  concentration  of  govern 
ment  in  Washington.  This  was  good  fighting- 
ground,  and  it  was  upon  this  basis  that  overtures 
were  made  to  Chase  to  consider  the  Democratic 
nomination.  The  phrase  by  which  he  described 
the  new  policy  was  "  universal  amnesty  and  uni 
versal  suffrage,"  which  meant  that  the  Southern 
white  voters  were  to  be  restored,  but  that  the 


366  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

negroes  should  maintain  their  suffrage  side  by  side 
with  them. 

The  difficulty  with  this  whole  suggestion  lay  in 
the  obvious  fact  that  negro  suffrage,  honestly  ad 
ministered,  meant  that  the  Southern  Democrats 
should  be  placed  in  a  permanent  minority  in  most 
of  the  Southern  States,  —  and  without  Southern 
electoral  votes  it  was  folly  to  think  of  electing  a 
Democratic  President.  The  strength  of  the  propo 
sition  was  in  the  hope  that  a  candidate  like  Chase 
would  draw  into  coalition  with  the  Democrats  such 
Republicans  as  were  alarmed  at  the  radicalism  of 
Congress  and  at  the  militarism  of  the  Republican 
candidate.  In  April,  1868,  while  the  impeach 
ment  trial  was  still  pending,  Chase  indicated  his 
willingness  to  accept  the  Democratic  nomination, 
and  on  May  5,  before  a  final  vote  by  the  Senate, 
he  wrote,  speaking  of  earlier  years :  "I  was  a 
Democrat  then,  too  democratic  for  the  Democratic 
party  of  those  days ;  for  I  admitted  no  exception, 
on  ground  of  race  or  color  or  condition,  to  the 
impartial  application  of  Democratic  principles  to 
all  measures  and  to  all  men.  Such  a  Democrat  I 
am  to-day." 

To  many  of  the  Democratic  leaders  he  seemed 
an  opportune  candidate,  and  the  chieftains  at 
tempted  to  find  some  common  ground  upon  which 
their  followers  might  stand  with  him.  A  letter  of 
May  30  to  August  Belmont  contains  a  candid 
statement  of  Chase's  position  ;  he  held  to  his  con 
viction  of  many  years  that  negro  suffrage  was  a 


SECOND   STAGE  OF  RECONSTRUCTION    3G7 

necessary  condition  in  the  future  South,  adding: 
"  I  would  eradicate  if  possible  every  root  of  bitter 
ness.  I  want  to  see  the  Union  and  the  Constitution 
established  in  the  affections  of  all  the  people,  and 
I  think  that  the  initiative  should  be  taken  by  the 
successful  side  in  the  late  struggle.  I  have  been 
and  am  in  favor  of  so  much  of  the  policy  of  Con 
gress  as  bases  the  reorganization  of  the  State  gov 
ernments  in  the  South  upon  universal  suffrage." 

For  some  days  before  the  New  York  Convention 
of  July,  1868,  Chase's  nomination  seemed  likely ; 
the  strongest  regular  Democratic  candidate,  Pen- 
dleton,  was  found  not  to  control  two  thirds  of  the 
convention,  and  Horatio  Seymour  absolutely  de 
clined  to  be  considered  as  a  candidate.  A  provi 
sional  platform  was  drawn  up  and  submitted  to 
Chase,  who  gave  his  assent  and  wrote  numerous 
letters  for  publication,  defining  his  ground  and 
pledging  himself  to  withdraw  the  troops  from  the 
Southern  States.  To  John  Van  Buren,  son  of  the 
late  President,  who  acted  as  his  representative,  he 
took  pains  to  write  privately :  "  I  must  not  be 
understood  as  expressing  any  opinion  on  questions 
of  constitutional  law  which  may  come  before  the 
court." 

As  the  date  of  the  convention,  July  8,  drew 
near,  negotiations  grew  closer ;  unfortunately  for 
Chase  most  of  his  old  and  tried  friends  had  no 
place  in  a  Democratic  convention ;  but  Vallandig- 
ham  of  Ohio  and  other  ultra-Democrats  favored 
his  nomination,  and  a  majority  of  the  New  York 


368  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

delegation  had  agreed  to  bring  him  forward.  As 
the  voting  proceeded  in  the  convention  on  July  9, 
it  was  clearly  seen  that  Pendleton  could  not  be 
nominated,  and  the  moment  was  approaching  when 
the  name  of  the  chief  justice  was  to  be  brought 
before  the  assembly.  Seymour,  the  president  of 
the  convention,  had  been  most  earnest  in  Chase's 
behalf,  and  expected  the  nomination  of  the  chief 
justice ;  but  when  Pendleton's  Ohio  leader,  Gen 
eral  McCook,  saw  that  his  favorite  could  not  be 
chosen,  he  nominated  Seymour,  and  despite  the 
latter's  protestations  the  nomination  was  carried 
with  an  uproar,  Chase's  name  having  barely  been 
mentioned  before  the  convention. 

Never  in  his  whole  life  had  Chase  come  so  near 
to  the  first  step  on  the  way  to  the  presidency. 
The  wrath  and  indignation  of  his  immediate  friends 
are  reflected  in  a  letter  from  one  of  his  family,  who 
was  on  the  ground :  "  You  have  been  most  cruelly 
deceived  and  shamefully  used  by  the  man  whom 
you  trusted  implicitly,  and  the  Country  must  suffer 
for  his  duplicity.  .  .  .  Mr.  Tilden  and  Mr.  Seymour 
have  done  this  work,  and  Mr.  Van  Buren  has  been 
their  tool."  The  real  reason  why  Chase  was  not 
nominated  was  undoubtedly  that  put  into  an  apo 
thegm  by  a  friend :  "Mr.  Chase  was  willing  to 
swallow  the  Democracy,  but  not  to  be  swallowed  by 
the  Democracy."  The  principle  of  negro  suffrage, 
to  which  he  had  adhered,  and  must  as  an  honest 
man  adhere,  was  too  much  for  the  convention,  and 
would  have  been  too  much  for  the  voters.  The  dis- 


SECOND  STAGE  OF  RECONSTRUCTION    369 

astrous  effect  of  such  a  nomination  was  sufficiently 
shown  in  1872  in  the  fate  of  Horace  Greeley ;  and 
Chase  simply  escaped  a  crushing  overthrow  when 
the  convention  refused  to  put  him  in  nomination. 

The  impeachment  of  Andrew  Johnson  marked 
the  high  tide  of  national  feeling  as  well  as  of  con 
gressional  supremacy  in  reconstruction  matters ; 
and  when  General  Grant  became  President,  in 
March,  1869,  there  were  already  evidences  of  re 
action.  Notwithstanding  the  "  carpet-bag  "  gov 
ernments  in  the  South,  the  Kepublican  majority 
in  the  lower  house  of  Congress  was  reduced,  and 
the  Supreme  Court  seemed  to  feel  free  to  decide 
an  accumulation  of  cases  involving  the  details  of 
reconstruction,  and  eventually  touching  the  effect 
of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment.  As  before,  Chase 
assumed  the  double  function  of  a  public  man  of 
large  experience  and  influence  who  desired  to  see 
what  he  believed  to  be  the  principles  of  the  Civil 
War  carried  out  in  legislation,  and  of  the  head  of 
the  court  which  had  the  responsibility  of  applying 
that  legislation. 

This  double  attitude  was  a  part  of  Chase's  na 
ture.  Quite  apart  from  his  ambition  to  be  Presi 
dent,  he  could  not  stand  aloof  from  the  public 
movement  of  reconstruction;  hence  in  1869  and 
1870  he  took  a  large  part  in  defending  negro  suf 
frage.  The  radical  Republican  leaders  desired  it 
even  more  than  he  did,  though  for  other  reasons. 
Indeed,  in  1869  suffrage  had  been  given  to  the 
negroes  in  every  Southern  State,  as  a  condition  of 


370  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

reconstruction :  but  it  was  easy  to  foresee  that  as 
soon  as  the  States  were  left  to  themselves  some  of 
them  would  surely  take  away  the  ballot,  with  the 
result  of  an  immediate  loss  of  Eepublican  control. 
The  radical  Republican  leaders  looked  on  negro 
suffrage  as  the  basis  of  their  electoral  and  con 
gressional  votes  in  the  South  :  to  passionate  recon- 
structionists,  like  Charles  Sumner  and  Thaddeus 
Stevens,  negro  suffrage  meant  a  final  triumph  over 
the  hated  rebel ;  to  Chase  it  seemed  the  means  not 
only  of  protecting  but  of  ennobling  the  negro.  He 
championed  it  earlier  than  any  other  public  man ; 
from  1862  he  urged  it  in  season  and  out  of  season ; 
he  pleaded  for  it  in  the  cabinet ;  and  he  separated 
from  Lincoln's  plan  of  reconstruction  principally 
because  that  plan  was  based  on  white  government. 
"With  Sumner  he  waited  on  Johnson,  immediately 
on  his  becoming  President,  to  urge  negro  suffrage ; 
and  the  occasion  of  his  opposition  to  Johnson's 
reconstruction  policy  was  the  President's  failure  to 
follow  those  good  counsels.  As  time  went  on,  the 
suffrage  occupied  more  and  more  of  his  thoughts ; 
he  felt  sure  that  Congress  woidd  have  made  easier 
terms  for  the  Southern  States  if  the  South  had 
voluntarily  enfranchised  the  negroes  ;  he  was  con 
vinced  that  universal  suffrage  was  everywhere  the 
only  safe  basis  for  popular  government ;  and  he 
thought  that  it  was  especially  necessary  in  the 
South,  in  order  to  quiet  the  terrors  of  the  negroes 
and  to  bring  them  back  into  harmonious  relations 
with  their  former  masters.  Indeed,  it  is  probable 


SECOND   STAGE   OF  RECONSTRUCTION    371 

that  for  their  own  purposes  the  Southern  leaders 
would  have  done  better  to  accept  negro  suffrage, 
and  then  to  organize  and  influence  the  negro  vote 
themselves.  To  secure  this  blessing,  Chase  was 
willing  and  anxious  to  have  "  universal  amnesty," 
that  is,  the  restoration  of  nearly  all  the  whites  to 
their  public  rights.  In  a  letter  of  May  29,  1869, 
he  says  :  "  I  have  lived  to  see  all  men  free  in 
America;  I  have  lived  to  see  one  currency  pro 
vided  for  the  people.  I  hope  to  live  to  see  univer 
sal  freedom  grounded  on  universal  suffrage,  and  a 
national  currency  perfected  into  equality  with  gold. 
These  things  are  only  foundations ;  future  genera 
tions  must  build  on  them." 

Nevertheless,  he  hesitated  when,  in  1869,  the 
Fifteenth  Amendment  was  introduced,  putting  the 
suffrage  into  irrepealable  form.  On  April  3, 1869, 
he  wrote  to  a  friend :  "  After  the  Fourteenth  Amend 
ment  was  adopted,  I  thought  the  suffrage  should 
be  left  to  the  States  after  restoration,  and  I  still 
think  so.  Centralization  and  consolidation  have 
gone  far  enough  and  too  far.  And  yet,  inasmuch 
as  the  proposed  Fifteenth  Amendment  does  not 
prevent  the  States  from  imposing  suitable  qualifi 
cations,  if  qualifications  should  be  found  necessary, 
I  incline  to  wish  that  it  may  be  ratified.  I  should 
have  no  reservation  in  that  wish  if  the  clause  giv 
ing  Congress  power  to  legislate  were  left  out.  I 
want  as  little  legislation  by  Congress  in  respect  to 
the  internal  concerns  of  the  States  as  possible." 
Once  decided,  however,  he  supported  the  amend- 


372  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

ment  heartily,  and  his  influence  was  strong  if  not 
decisive  in  the  Ohio  legislature  in  securing  the 
ratification  by  that  State,  and  thus  completing 
the  three-fourths  majority  necessary  to  make  the 
amendment  part  of  the  Constitution.  When  it 
was  duly  proclaimed,  November  30,  1870,  Chase 
felt  that  the  structure  was  now  complete,  and  he 
wrote :  "  No  man  can  now  be  found  who  will  re 
store  slavery;  a  few  years  hence,  if  the  colored 
men  are  wise,  it  will  be  impossible  to  find  a  man 
who  will  avow  himself  in  favor  of  denying  or 
abridging  their  right  to  vote." 

Chase's  remark  about  centralization  is  a  key  to 
his  general  attitude  in  the  court  from  this  time  on. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  all  his  life  long  he  had 
been  accustomed  to  look  upon  the  States  as  but 
tressed  in  impregnable  rights.  He  had  always 
acknowledged  the  privilege  of  the  States  to  estab 
lish  slavery  if  they  chose,  and  for  that  very  reason 
had  been  determined  that  express  constitutional 
amendments  must  be  secured  to  deprive  them  of 
that  right.  He  had  been  alarmed  both  at  the  im 
mense  and  unrestrained  power  exercised  by  the 
President  during  the  Civil  War,  and  at  the  arbi 
trary  power  asserted  by  Congress  during  recon 
struction  ;  and  he  could  see  that,  if  the  vitality  of 
the  States  should  be  destroyed,  the  power  taken 
from  them  must  inevitably  fall  into  the  hands  of 
the  President  or  of  Congress. 

No  case  came  before  the  Supreme  Court  at  this 
time  which  involved  the  right  of  the  individual  to 


SECOND  STAGE  OF  RECONSTRUCTION    373 

freedom.  In  December,  1865,  a  negro  was  form 
ally  admitted  to  the  bar  of  the  Supreme  Court  by 
Chase's  direct  influence ;  and  in  1867  he  ordered 
that  in  the  district  of  North  Carolina  the  marshal 
should  summon  negroes  as  well  as  whites  to  serve 
on  the  jury.  His  decision  in  the  Maryland  Appren 
tice  Case  has  already  been  noted.  The  only  slavery 
cases  which  came  before  the  Supreme  Court  in 
volved  the  enforcement  of  unexecuted  contracts  for 
buying  slaves.  In  the  first  of  these  cases  (  White  v. 
Hart,  1872)  suit  was  brought  for  the  collection  of 
a  note  given  in  1859,  the  consideration  for  which 
was  a  slave.  Though  the  Georgia  Constitution  of 
1868  positively  denied  all  jurisdiction  for  the  en 
forcement  of  any  debt  of  that  kind,  the  Supreme 
Court  held  that  neither  a  state  constitution  nor  a 
statute  could  impair  the  obligation  of  the  contract. 
In  the  case  of  Osborn  v.  Nicholson,  decided  at  the 
same  time,  the  court  construed  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment,  and  held  that  it  did  not  alter  con 
tractual  rights  which  had  previously  accrued.  From 
these  decisions  the  chief  justice  was  the  only  mem 
ber  of  the  court  to  dissent,  and  his  opinion  goes 
back  to  the  same  general  principle  as  did  his  argu 
ment  in  the  Van  Zandt  Case,  twenty-four  years 
earlier.  He  held  "  that  contracts  for  the  purchase 
and  sale  of  slaves  were  and  are  against  sound 
morals  and  justice,  and  without  support  except  in 
positive  law,"  and  that  all  laws  which  supported 
slavery  and  slavery  contracts  were  annulled  by  the 
Thirteenth  and  Fourteenth  Amendments.  The 


374  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

same  question  came  up  again  in  Bryce  v.  Tabb, 
in  1873,  and  the  court  took  substantially  the  same 
ground. 

A  large  group  of  Supreme  Court  cases  turned 
upon  the  effect  of  the  Civil  War  on  the  rights  of 
property.  In  two  cases,  United  States  v.  Ander 
son  (1869-70),  and  the  Protector  (1871),  the 
court  passed  on  the  important  question  as  to  when 
the  war  legally  began  and  ended,  but  the  two  de 
cisions  did  not  harmonize.  In  the  first  case  the 
court  held  without  dissent  that  the  proclamation 
of  August  20, 1866,  was  "  the  first  official  declara 
tion  that  we  have  on  the  part  of  the  executive  that 
the  rebellion  was  wholly  suppressed,  and  .  .  .  the 
limitation  .  .  .  did  not  begin  to  run  until  the  re 
bellion  was  suppressed  throughout  the  whole  coun 
try."  In  the  second  case  it  was  held  without  dis 
sent  that  "  the  war  did  not  begin  or  close  at  the 
same  time  in  all  the  States  ; "  but  that  it  began  in 
the  first  seven  States  by  the  proclamation  of  block 
ade,  April  19,  1861,  and  in  Virginia  and  North 
Carolina  by  the  similar  proclamation  of  April  27, 
1861 ;  and  that  it  ceased  in  twelve  States  by  the 
proclamation  of  April  12,  1866,  and  in  Texas  by 
the  proclamation  of  August  25,  1866.  In  another 
decision  of  much  importance,  The  Grapeshot,  the 
court  upheld  provisional  courts  set  up  by  direction 
of  the  President,  without  any  legislative  authority, 
in  parts  of  the  seceded  States  occupied  by  the 
federal  troops. 

Three  important  decisions  expounded  the  vexed 


SECOND   STAGE  OF  RECONSTRUCTION    375 

relation  of  seceded  States  to  the  Union,  —  the 
question  which  had  so  perplexed  Congress.  In 
Tlior'mgton  v.  Smith,  the  court  without  dissent 
recognized  as  a  fact  the  existence  of  Confederate 
paper  notes  during  the  war,  and  their  use  in  con 
tracts  then  made.  Chase,  who  drew  the  opinion, 
took  the  ground  that  the  Confederacy  "  was  an  act 
ual  government  of  all  the  insurgent  States ; " 
though  he  refused  to  recognize  it  as  having  been  a 
de  facto  government,  obedience  to  which  did  not 
constitute  treason  to  the  United  States,  he  did  style 
it  a  "  government  of  paramount  force ;  .  .  .  the 
rights  and  obligations  of  a  belligerent  were  conceded 
to  it,  in  its  military  character,  very  soon  after  the 
war  began,  from  motives  of  humanity  and  expedi 
ency  by  the  United  States."  This  ground  was 
modified  a  little  later  in  the  case  of  United  States 
v.  Keehler,  in  which  it  was  held  that  "  the  whole 
Confederate  power  must  be  regarded  by  us  as  a 
usurpation  of  unlawful  authority,  incapable  of  pass 
ing  valid  laws,"  and  that  "  acts  of  the  Confederate 
Congress  can  have  no  force,  as  law,  in  divesting  or 
transferring  rights ;  "  and  again  in  Hickman  v. 
Jones,  et  al.,  when  it  was  held  that  the  recognition 
of  belligerent  rights  "  did  not  extend  to  the  pre 
tended  government  of  the  Confederacy.  The  in 
tercourse  was  confined  to  its  military  authorities ; 
.  .  .  the  act  of  the  Confederate  Congress  creating 
the  tribunal  in  question  was  void.  It  was  as  if  it 
were  not." 

Another  group  of   cases   in  which  Chase   took 


376  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

particular  interest  related  to  the  border  intercourse, 
which  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  he  had  alter 
nately  prohibited  and  regulated.  In  Padelford's 
Case  (1869—70),  the  question  was  raised  as  to 
whether  Lincoln's  amnesty  proclamation  of  Decem 
ber  8,  1863,  restored  the  property  rights  of  a  man 
who  had  accepted  the  provisions  of  that  proclama 
tion.  The  court  held  that  the  amnesty  did  restore 
him  to  his  rights  ;  and  in  this  instance^and  also  in 
the  case  of  United  /States  v.  Anderson,  the  court 
enforced,  and  thereby  gave  its  adhesion  to,  the  con 
fiscation  acts  of  1861-62,  and  to  the  acts  for  the 
collection  of  abandoned  property,  under  which  the 
Treasury  had  taken  possession  of  immense  quan 
tities  of  property.  In  the  case  of  Miller  v.  United 
States,  the  court  declined  to  apply  the  constitu 
tional  amendment  allowing  jury  trial  and  due  pro 
cess  of  law  to  those  confiscation  acts,  on  the  ground 
that  they  were  not  punitive  but  military  acts,  ex 
ercised  under  power  to  declare  war  and  make  rules 
respecting  captures.  In  the  case  of  Corbctt  v.  Nutt 
(1870-71),  the  court  refused  to  apply  the  principle 
of  the  confiscation  acts  to  commercial  transactions 
within  the  Confederate  lines,  and  thus  "to  taint 
with  invalidity  even  the  commonest  transactions  of 
exchange  in  the  daily  life  of  these  people." 

These  decisions  taken  together  show  that  the 
action  of  the  court  was  both  sensible  and  humane. 
It  refused  to  hold  the  internal  transactions  of  in 
dividuals  within  the  Confederacy,  or  those  of  the 
Confederate  and  state  governments  with  Individ- 


SECOND   STAGE   OF  RECONSTRUCTION    377 

uals,  to  be  simply  a  mass  of  futile  agreements  and 
restrictions ;  only  so  far  as  acts  of  individuals  or 
of  the  Confederacy  had  been  made  the  means  of 
opposition  to  the  United  States  were  they  held  il 
legal  and  invalid.  In  this  group  of  decisions  there 
was  little  dissent,  and  in  no  case  was  Chase  among 
the  dissenters. 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  Supreme  Court  should 
eventually  construe  and  limit  the  reconstruction 
acts  so  far  as  they  related  to  the  domain  of  the 
President.  The  President's  contact  with  the  judi 
ciary  power  came  principally  through  his  pardon 
ing  power ;  and  in  the  Padelford,  Klein,  and  Arm 
strong  cases  the  court  affirmed  that  his  pardon  re 
moved  any  responsibility  for  an  offense  connected 
with  the  rebellion,  and  that  though  an  act  of  Con 
gress  might  carry  the  pardon  into  effect,  it  could 
not  abridge  the  President's  pardoning  power. 
Though  the  right  of  the  President  to  set  up  pro 
visional  courts  in  the  seceded  States  was  approved 
by  the  court,  Chase  could  not  forget  the  arbitrary 
tribunals  of  the  Civil  War,  to  which  he  had  given 
a  reluctant  consent  when  they  were  founded ;  and 
therefore  in  TarbeWs  Case  (1871),  when  the  Su 
preme  Court  denied  the  power  of  a  state  court  by 
habeas  corpus  to  release  men  illegally  enlisted 
in  the  army,  Chase  felt  it  his  duty  to  dissent. 
This  was  very  nearly  the  point  which  had  been 
raised  in  the  Garner  controversy  in  1856,  when  as 
governor  of  Ohio  he  had  insisted  on  the  power  of 
state  habeas  corpus  against  federal  officials.  He 


378  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

now  entered  his  protest  in  favor  of  his  old  principle 
that  "  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  may  issue  from  a 
state  court  to  inquire  into  the  validity  of  imprison 
ment  or  detention  without  a  sentence  of  any  court 
whatever,  by  an  officer  of  the  United  States,"  even 
though  the  President's  proclamation  of  December, 
1863,  issued  after  the  adoption  of  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment,  was  "  a  public  act  of  which  all  courts 
of  the  United  States  are  bound  to  take  notice." 
This  decision,  however,  was  not  construed  to  tra 
verse  the  authority  to  exclude  from  office  certain 
classes  of  persons  who  had  engaged  in  the  rebellion, 
given  to  Congress  under  the  Fourteenth  Amend 
ment. 

In  the  famous  case  of  Texas  v.  White,  decided 
in  1869,  the  court  drew  nearer  to  the  fundamental 
question  of  the  status  of  the  Southern  States  dur 
ing  the  war ;  the  opinion  was  written  by  the  chief 
justice,  who  considered  it  his  most  important  work 
on  the  bench.  The  critical  point  before  the  court 
was  whether  Texas  was  a  State  in  the  Union  in 
1862  and  1865.  In  a  splendid  phrase  Chase  laid 
down  his  theory  of  government :  "  The  Constitu 
tion,  in  all  its  provisions,  looks  to  an  indestructible 
Union  composed  of  indestructible  States.  When, 
therefore,  Texas  became  one  of  the  United  States 
she  entered  into  an  indissoluble  relation.  There 
was  no  place  for  reconstruction,  or  revocation,  ex 
cept  through  revolution,  or  through  consent  of  the 
States."  Hence,  he  argued,  the  acts  of  the  seced 
ing  legislature  were  null,  for  "  Texas  continued  to 


SECOND   STAGE  OF  RECONSTRUCTION    379 

be  a  State  and  a  State  of  the  Union."  But  the 
chief  justice  went  on  to  show  that  although  the 
obligations  of  Texas  were  unimpaired,  its  federal 
relations  were  affected,  and  some  of  its  privileges 
for  the  time  being  forfeited  ;  and  that  under  the 
power  to  guarantee  to  every  State  a  republican 
form  of  government  Congress  had  the  right  to  pro 
vide  for  the  reconstruction  of  a  State.  The  deci 
sion  not  only  admitted  that  reconstruction  had  been 
constitutionally  performed  under  the  acts  of  Con 
gress,  it  also  recognized,  as  legitimate  and  as  re 
presenting  the  State,  the  provisional  government 
which  was  actually  in  existence  before  Texas  was 
readmitted  to  representation  in  Congress.  Grier, 
Swayne,  and  Miller,  in  dissenting  opinions,  denied 
that  under  the  provisional  government,  subject  as 
it  was  to  military  power  and  deprived  of  represen 
tation  in  Congress,  Texas  could  be  considered  as  a 
State  in  the  Union. 

The  plain  effect  of  this  decision  was  to  deny  that 
theory  of  state  suicide  to  which  Chase  had  earlier 
given  his  adhesion  ;  for  it  asserted  that,  as  soon  as 
the  war  ended  and  the  people  of  Texas  chose  to 
reconstitute  the  government,  they  recovered  state 
hood,  though  not  necessarily  complete  privileges 
in  the  Union,  since  those  involved  a  question  to  be 
decided  by  the  national  government.  The  "  Nation  " 
said  of  the  decision :  "  The  Supreme  Court  has 
thus  in  this  judgment  placed  the  nation  and  the 
State  upon  exactly  the  same  footing :  whatever 
weakens  the  one  weakens  the  other  ;  whoever  denies 


380  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

the  historical  origin  of  the  one  denies  the  same 
origin  for  the  other.  This  theory  gives  the  greatest 
security  both  to  the  State  and  to  the  Union."  In 
the  announcement  of  this  decision  the  court  placed 
itself  side  by  side  with  Congress  and  the  new  Pre 
sident,  in  affirming  that  the  process  of  reconstruc 
tion  had  been  constitutional,  or  at  least  allowable, 
and  could  no  longer  be  questioned. 

Three  years  later,  in  the  case  of  White  v.  Hart, 
(1872),  though  Chase  dissented  on  one  point,  he 
acquiesced  in  a  sweeping  approval  of  the  whole 
system  of  constitutional  reconstruction.  "  The 
action  of  Congress  upon  the  subject,"  said  he, 
"  cannot  be  inquired  into.  The  case  is  clearly  one 
in  which  the  judicial  is  bound  to  follow  the  action 
of  the  political  department  of  the  government,  and 
is  concluded  by  it."  Congress  had  never  been 
quite  certain  of  the  constitutional  ground  upon 
which  it  reconstructed  the  Southern  States,  and  the 
Supreme  Court  eliminated  most  of  the  prevail 
ing  theories.  The  theory  of  state  suicide  it  denied 
resolutely :  "  At  no  time  were  the  rebellious 
States  out  of  the  pale  of  the  Union.  Their  rights 
under  the  Constitution  were  suspended  but  not 
destroyed.  Their  constitutional  duties  and  obliga 
tions  were  unaffected  and  remained  the  same." 
The  doctrine  of  conquered  provinces  was  also  de 
nied.  "  The  Constitution,"  said  the  court,  "  as 
sumed  that  the  government  and  the  Union  which 
it  created,  and  the  States  which  it  incorporated  into 
the  Union,  would  be  indestructible  and  perpetual." 


SECOND  STAGE  OF  RECONSTRUCTION    381 

The  decision  thus  rested  squarely  upon  a  modifica 
tion  of  the  theory  of  forfeited  rights.  "  A  citizen 
is  still  a  citizen  though  guilty  of  crime  and  visited 
with  punishment.  His  political  rights  may  be  put 
in  abeyance  or  forfeited." 

As  might  have  been  expected,  so  soon  as  the 
Southern  States  were  again  admitted  to  seats  in 
Congress  there  was  a  tendency  in  the  South  to  put 
an  end  by  violence  to  negro  suffrage ;  hence  Con 
gress  passed  a  statute,  the  so-called  Civil  Rights 
Bill,  under  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amend 
ments,  to  protect  the  negroes.  With  reference  to 
this  act  Chase,  in  the  term  of  1871-72,  took  the 
unusual  step  of  writing  to  the  judges  on  his  circuit, 
asking  them  to  send  up  a  divided  opinion  on  a 
test  case  for  adjudication  by  the  Supreme  Court. 
No  such  case  reached  the  court  during  Chase's  life 
time,  and  his  judicial  activity  was  now  practically 
over. 

A  short  time  before  his  death,  other  issues  arising 
out  of  the  amendments  were  presented  to  the  court 
in  the  Slaughter-house  Cases,  which  are  the  most 
important  and  far-reaching  of  the  series  of  recon 
struction  decisions.  The  decision  was  rendered  by 
a  nearly  divided  court :  with  Field,  Bradley,  and 
Swayne,  Chase  dissented  from  the  opinion  of  the 
court ;  but  he  was  too  ill  to  prepare  a  statement  of 
his  reasons,  hence  it  can  only  be  inferred  that  he 
agreed  with  Field  that  the  Fourteenth  Amendment 
was  intended  not  only  to  protect  the  negro's  rights, 
but  to  remove  forever  from  the  States  the  power  of 


382  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

making  distinctions  between  different  classes  of 
persons.  The  case  involved  the  monopoly  of  the 
slaughtering  business  conferred  by  the  legislature 
of  Louisiana :  and  the  counsel  whose  arguments 
seemed  to  find  favor  with  the  minority  of  the  court 
was  John  A.  Campbell,  who  had  resigned  from  the 
court  in  1861  when  his  State  seceded.  His  con 
tention  was  that,  by  forbidding  other  butchers  to 
slaughter  for  the  New  Orleans  market,  the  govern 
ment  of  Louisiana  had  acted  contrary  to  the  Thir 
teenth  Amendment,  which  prohibited  involutary 
servitude ;  and  that,  in  violation  of  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment,  the  petitioners,  engaged  in  the  busi 
ness  of  slaughtering,  were  deprived  of  the  privi 
leges  and  immunities  of  citizens,  and  were  also 
deprived  of  their  property  without  due  process  of 
law. 

The  argument  drawn  from  the  Thirteenth  Amend 
ment  was  swept  away  by  the  court  with  little  more 
than  the  remark  that  "  with  a  microscopic  search 
[to]  endeavor  to  find  in  it  a  reference  to  servitudes 
which  may  have  been  attached  to  property  in  cer 
tain  localities,  requires  an  effort,  to  say  the  least  of 
it."  The  main  object  of  the  decision  was  to  con 
sider  and  construe  the  Fourteenth  Amendment, 
and  the  majority  of  the  court  put  upon  it  a  narrow 
construction  which  left  to  the  States  most  of  the 
powers  which  they  had  possessed  before  the  Civil 
War.  They  held  that  historically  the  amendment 
was  intended  to  overthrow  the  Dred  Scott  decision, 
for  the  benefit  of  the  negro  race ;  indeed,  that  all  the 


SECOND   STAGE  OF  RECONSTRUCTION    383 

amendments  were  "  addressed  to  the  grievances  of 
that  race  and  designed  to  remedy  them."  "  Where 
it  is  declared  that  Congress  shall  have  the  power 
to  enforce  that  article,  was  it  intended  to  bring 
within  the  power  of  Congress  the  entire  domain  of 
civil  rights,  heretofore  belonging  exclusively  to  the 
States  ?  "  This  reasoning  of  course  withdrew  from 
federal  legislation  large  areas  of  protective  law 
which  had  been  supposed  to  be  vested  in  Congress, 
and  it  was  accepted  by  the  whole  country  as  a  with 
drawal  of  powers  which  would  otherwise  have  been 
exercised  by  the  national  government.  In  fact,  the 
consciousness  of  the  court  that  it  was  acting  as  a 
balance-wheel  was  expressed  in  the  final  paragraph 
of  the  decision  :  "  But  whatever  fluctuations  may 
be  seen  in  the  history  of  public  opinion  on  this  sub 
ject,  during  the  period  of  our  national  existence, 
we  think  it  will  be  found  that  this  court,  so  far  as 
its  functions  require,  has  always  held  with  a  steady 
and  an  even  hand  the  balance  between  State  and 
federal  power." 

With  this  decision  the  Civil  War  virtually  ended, 
and  the  Supreme  Court  reached  the  height  of  its 
conservative  influence.  During  the  eight  years  of 
his  service  as  chief  justice,  Chase's  influence  had 
been  on  the  whole  for  moderation,  for  the  continu 
ance  of  the  Union  as  he  had  first  known  it,  for  the 
pruning  of  the  excessive  powers  which  had  grown 
out  of  the  Civil  War,  and  for  the  protection  of 
human  rights.  Though  he  could  not  agree  in  this 
final  decision,  his  own  influence  had  long  been  ex 
erted  in  the  direction  which  it  marked. 


CHAPTER  XV 

FINANCIAL   AND   LEGAL  TENDER   DECISIONS 

IN  the  previous  chapter  account  has  been  taken 
of  the  principal  political  decisions  of  the  Supreme 
Court  under  Chase's  leadership,  decisions  which 
dealt  with  broad  questions  of  human  liberty,  of 
arbitrary  government,  of  the  methods  of  protecting 
civilians,  and  of  the  relations  of  the  departments 
of  government  with  each  other ;  decisions  which 
involved  conflicts  of  jurisdiction  between  state 
and  national  courts,  or  between  civil  and  military 
tribunals.  Side  by  side  with  these  judgments 
came  the  usual  series  of  ordinary  private  cases  in 
volving  property  or  franchises ;  but  the  immense 
change  in  the  system  of  public  finance  caused  some 
of  these  latter  controversies  to  bring  before  the 
court  grave  constitutional  questions  growing  out  of 
the  Civil  War.  New  systems  of  taxation  involved 
vexed  questions  of  personal  rights  and  of  the  privi 
leges  of  the  States ;  the  revision  of  the  banking 
system  of  the  country  made  necessary  new  defini 
tions  of  the  power  of  Congress  over  corporations ; 
and  the  government  paper  currency,  and  especially 
the  legal-tender  notes,  furnished  a  new  subject  for 
judicial  settlement. 


FINANCIAL  AND  LEGAL  TENDER  DECISIONS  385 

In  the  most  important  tax  case  during  the  Civil 
War,  People  of  New  York  v.  Commissioner  of 
Taxes,  1862,  the  jSupreme  Court  upheld  the  ex 
emption  from  taxation  of  such  United  States  bonds 
as  formed  part  of  the  capital  of  banks.  The  re 
organized  court  saw  no  reason  for  interfering  with 
the  execution  of  the  laws  as  they  stood ;  and  in  only 
one  case,  Hepburn  v.  Griswold,  held  any  part  of  a 
financial  statute  to  be  unconstitutional.  On  the 
contrary,  besides  many  cases  in  which  principles  of 
limitation  on  state  and  municipal  finance  were  laid 
down,  the  court  built  up  a  new  system  of  law  based 
on  the  national  powers  of  taxation.  First  by  impli 
cation  and  later  by  specific  decisions,  it  enforced  the 
income  tax,  the  internal  revenue,  and  the  modifica 
tions  of  the  tariff.  In  these  decisions  Chase  had 
the  rare  opportunity  as  a  justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court  to  review  judicially  and  to  construe  the 
statutes  which  he  himself  had  set  in  motion  as  an 
administrative  officer.  His  familiarity  with  the 
revenue  system  gave  him  a  special  competency 
and  aided  him  to  strengthen  the  whole  system  of 
national  finance. 

The  first  important  financial  decision  was  ren 
dered  in  1866-67  in  the  License  Tax  Cases,  which 
turned  upon  a  provision  of  the  internal  revenue  act 
of  1864  prohibiting  persons  from  engaging  in  cer 
tain  trades  or  occupations,  including  those  of  sell 
ing  lottery  tickets  and  liquors  at  retail,  until  they 
should  have  obtained  a  license.  The  court  held 
that  such  legislation  was  allowable  because  the 


386  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

licenses  were  "  mere  receipts  for  taxes,"  and  gave 
no  authority  to  carry  on  a  business  which  was  pro 
hibited  by  a  State ;  but  at  the  same  time  the  opin 
ions  most  explicitly  set  forth  that  Congress  had 
no  power  of  regulation  of  commerce  or  business 
within  the  State,  except  as  incidental  to  the  exer 
cise  of  powers  clearly  implied  from  expressly 
granted  powers.  Between  the  argument  and  the 
final  decision  in  these  cases,  Congress  by  new  legis 
lation  reiterated  the  power  to  stop  the  exercise  of 
a  business  till  the  license  was  paid,  and  the  court 
referred  incidentally  to  the  new  statute  with  clear 
approval  of  its  constitutionality. 

Three  years  later  the  court  had  occasion  again 
to  decide  fundamental  questions  of  taxation,  and 
between  1869  and  1871  it  rendered  three  decisions, 
in  all  of  which  may  be  seen  the  influence  of  Chase's 
identification  with  the  financial  measures  of  the 
Civil  War.  The  first  of  these,  Veazie  Bank  v. 
Fenno,  1869-70,  was  a  test  case  upon  the  most 
sweeping  portion  of  the  national  bank  legislation, 
the  ten  per  cent  tax  on  state  bank  notes,  which 
Chase  had  so  long  and  so  unsuccessfully  advocated 
when  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  which  was  first 
imposed  by  an  act  of  March  3, 1865.  The  opinion 
was  written  by  the  chief  justice,  and  is  in  effect  a 
brief  history  of  his  purpose  and  understanding  in 
drafting  the  national  bank  legislation.  To  defend 
the  principle  that  Congress  might  prohibit  state 
bank  notes  under  color  of  taxing  them  out  of  exist 
ence  was  difficult,  in  the  face  of  the  long  estab- 


FINANCIAL  AND  LEGAL  TENDER  DECISIONS  387 

lished  legal  principle  that  the  States  might  not  tax 
a  federal  corporation  in  the  same  fashion ;  and  the 
prohibitory  tax  had  always  seemed  drastic.  It  was 
easy  to  dispose  of  the  contention  that  the  tax  was 
"  direct,"  and  therefore  must  be  assessed  in  pro 
portion  to  population  ;  but  it  was  more  difficult  to 
make  out  that  the  United  States  might  tax  a  fran 
chise  granted  by  a  State,  and  presumably  an  instru 
mentality  of  the  State,  and  might  make  the  tax  so 
excessive  as  to  nullify  a  power  of  issuing  notes, 
which  was  unquestionably  possessed  by  the  States. 
"  The  first  answer  to  this  is,"  said  Chase,  "  that  the 
judicial  cannot  prescribe  to  the  legislative  depart 
ments  of  the  government  limitations  upon  the  exer 
cise  of  its  acknowledged  powers,  and  that  as  a 
means  to  provide  a  currency  for  the  whole  country, 
Congress  might  restrain  the  issue  of  their  [the 
States]  notes."  Only  two  of  the  justices,  Nelson 
and  Davis,  dissented,  and  the  principle  of  the  tax 
has  never  since  been  disturbed  by  Congress  or  the 
court. 

The  State  Tonnage  Tax  Cases  in  1870-71  had 
no  special  relation  to  civil  war  finance,  though  they 
asserted  the  superior  force  of  national  over  state 
taxes ;  but  in  the  Case  of  the  State  Tax  on  For 
eign-held  Bonds,  in  1872-73,  the  court  by  five 
to  four  affirmed  the  important  doctrine  that  a 
State  could  not  tax  bonds  held  by  persons  in  an 
other  State,  though  secured  by  property  within  its 
limits. 

The   last  of  the  important   tax    cases    during 


388  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

Chase's  continuance  in  the  court,  Collector  v.  Day, 
1870-71,  raised  the  general  question  of  the  constitu 
tionality  of  the  national  income  tax,  which  had  been 
laid  for  the  first  time  in  accordance  with  Chase's 
suggestions,  and  had  been  collected  under  his  super 
vision.  The  immediate  question  was  whether  an 
income  tax  could  be  levied  on  the  salary  of  a  state 
officer ;  and  the  court  held  such  incomes  to  be  ex 
empt,  on  the  same  ground  that  would  prevent  a 
State  from  taxing  the  salary  of  a  federal  officer. 
Throughout  its  decision  the  court  recognized  the 
constitutionality  of  the  income  tax  as  it  stood  ;  and 
the  only  ordinary  financial  legislation  which  it  dis 
allowed  was  a  proviso  in  an  appropriation  act  (case 
of  United  States  v.  Klein),  inserted  to  prevent  the 
proof  of  claims  by  persons  who  had  adhered  to  the 
Confederacy. 

The  general  result,  then,  of  the  decisions  which 
related  to  the  finances  of  the  Civil  War  was  to 
uphold  the  legislation  of  Congress ;  and  in  several 
instances  Chase  took  the  opportunity  to  vindicate 
his  policy  by  a  brief  historical  and  judicial  re 
view  of  the  principles  and  probable  reasons  of  that 
legislation.  The  most  important  decision  was  that 
upholding  the  tax  on  state  bank  notes ;  and  that 
principle  has  never  since  been  disturbed.  The 
next  in  consequence  was  that  affirming  the  income 
tax.  Twenty-five  years  later,  by  the  narrowest 
majority,  the  court  practically  reversed  this  deci 
sion,  and  by  implication  held  the  statutes  of  1861 
and  1862  unconstitutional. 


FINANCIAL  AND  LEGAL  TENDER  DECISIONS   389 

Undoubtedly  the  greatest  deviation  from  the 
former  constitutional  principles  of  the  government 
made  during  the  Civil  War  was  the  issue  of  legal 
tender  notes.  'It  was  much  contested  at  the  time 
the  first  statute  was  passed  in  1862 ;  test  cases  were 
made  up  within  a  few  months  which  could  not  be 
prevented  from  eventually  reaching  the  Supreme 
Court ;  and  the  history  of  the  issues  of  government 
notes  from  1862  to  1869  was  such  as  to  give  pause 
to  some  of  the  early  supporters  of  the  legal  tender 
principle.  So  long  as  Chase  remained  in  the  Trea 
sury  he  felt  it  incumbent  upon  him  to  defend  both 
the  expediency  and  the  constitutionality  of  the 
notes.  In  1863  the  first  important  test  case  was 
made  up  in  New  York,  although  Chase  seemed  to 
expect  that,  notwithstanding  the  legal  tender  clause, 
the  state  banks  might  be  bound  to  redeem  their 
outstanding  issues  in  specie.  David  Dudley  Field 
and  S.  A.  Foote  were  designated  in  behalf  of  the 
Treasury  Department  to  argue  in  favor  of  the  con 
stitutionality  of  the  act,  and  George  T.  Curtis  wrote 
to  Chase  to  remonstrate  on  "  the  improper  effort 
on  the  part  of  the  administration  to  influence  the 
court  of  the  State."  Both  the  New  York  and  the 
Pennsylvania  courts  speedily  affirmed  the  consti 
tutionality  of  the  legal  tender  act,  and  the  judges 
in  both  States  sent  messages  or  letters  to  Chase  to 
inform  him  of  their  decisions.  It  is  plain,  there 
fore,  that  he  was  recognized,  the  country  over,  as  the 
champion  of  the  constitutionality  of  the  acts,  and 
in  a  letter  of  May  18,  1864,  he  says  to  a  friend : 


390  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

"  I  do  not  agree  with  you  in  advocating  that  the 
Constitution  prohibits  the  issue  of  legal  tender 
notes  under  authority  of  Congress." 

In  the  same  letter  Chase  goes  on  to  say :  "  I  do 
agree  in  the  opinion  that  an  inflated  paper  currency 
is  a  great  evil,  and  should  be  reformed  as  soon  as 
possible."  The  sentence  really  indicates  the  begin 
ning  of  the  change  in  his  mind,  as  he  saw  the  dan 
gerous  results  of  the  legal  tender  clause,  and  when 
the  war  was  over  and  he  saw  the  notes  still  con 
tinue,  he  took  alarm,  and  began  to  urge  the  speedy 
resumption  of  specie  payments.  What  he  had 
first  intended  was  only  to  make  a  provision  for  a 
national  exigency,  to  issue  1150,000,000,  which 
could  be  withdrawn  as  soon  as  he  could  place 
his  loans  and  organize  the  national  bank  system ; 
what  he  saw  in  1869  was  a  prosperous  country 
accepting  issues  then  irredeemable  and  likely  to 
be  unredeemed,  and  refusing  to  provide  either 
for  their  withdrawal  or  their  restoration  to  a  specie 
basis. 

In  the  original  draft  of  the  statute  which  came 
from  Chase's  hands,  the  issue  of  notes,  even  without 
the  legal  tender  clause,  was  stated  to  be  for  "  tem 
porary  purposes."  As  soon  as  the  war  was  over, 
Congress,  under  the  efficient  lead  of  Hugh  McCul- 
loch,  the  able  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  proceeded 
to  redeem  those  notes,  of  which  nearly  $ 450,000,- 
000  were  then  outstanding.  December  8,  1865, 
with  but  six  negative  votes,  the  House  voted  that  it 
"  approved  the  contraction  of  currency  with  a  view 


FINANCIAL  AND  LEGAL  TENDER  DECISIONS   391 

to  as  early  a  resumption  of  specie  payments  as 
the  business  interest  of  this  country  will  permit ; " 
and  the  secretary  took  advantage  of  the  large  in 
come  of  the  government  and  the  sales  of  military 
material  to  withdraw  legal  tenders  as  fast  as  they 
came  into  the  Treasury.  On  March  12,  1866,  how 
ever,  Congress  limited  this  necessary  process  by 
directing  that  $10,000,000  of  the  notes  might  be 
retired  in  six  months  and  $4,000,000  every  month 
from  that  time  on ;  and  even  this  limited  with 
drawal  was  checked  by  the  commercial  disasters  of 
1866  and  by  reduction  of  the  national  income. 

Meantime  greenbacks  circulated  everywhere,  side 
by  side  with  the  national  bank  notes,  and  no 
thing  but  more  bank  currency  could  take  their 
place.  The  banks,  however,  were  already  looked 
upon  with  suspicion  as  capitalistic  monopolies,  and 
on  January  22, 1868,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
was  directed  to  reissue  legal  tenders  as  they  came 
in,  leaving  outstanding  a  maximum  of  $382,000,- 
000,  which  was  reduced  gradually  to  $346,000,000; 
this  amount  was  in  1878  made  permanent.  John 
son  outbid  Congress,  in  his  last  annual  message  of 
December,  1868,  by  proposing  that  the  bondholders 
be  compelled  to  receive  legal  tenders  in  exchange 
for  the  face  of  their  bonds,  in  sixteen  annual  in 
stallments  without  interest ;  and  though  Congress 
on  the  last  day  of  Johnson's  term  voted  that  the 
government  "solemnly  pledges  its  faith  to  make 
provision,  at  the  earliest  practical  period,  for  the 
redemption  of  the  United  States  notes  in  coin,"  it 


392  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

took  no  steps  to  redeem  that  pledge,  and  a  party 
sprang  up  which  desired  to  base  the  national 
finance  on  unlimited  paper  money. 

Meanwhile,  the  Supreme  Court  had  been  listen 
ing  twice  over  to  arguments  against  the  consti 
tutionality  of  the  legal  tenders.  Grant  became 
President  in  1869,  and  appointed  Bout  well  his 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury ;  it  was  seen  that  no 
remedy  for  the  evils  of  paper  money  was  likely  to 
go  through  Congress ;  and  hence  the  Supreme 
Court  undertook  to  settle  the  question  by  annulling 
the  legal  tender  legislation  and  thus  compelling 
a  return  to  a  "  specie  basis."  The  continuance  of  a 
war  measure  of  finance  in  time  of  peace  seemed  to 
Chase  especially  unfortunate  because,  by  1868,  the 
national  banks  were  working  so  well  that  they  had 
1300,000,000  of  circulation,  and  had  thus  justified 
his  original  expectation  that  they  would  eventually 
furnish  a  currency  adequate  in  amount  and  per 
fectly  secure  for  all  the  needs  of  the  country.  To 
his  mind,  the  time  had  come  when  the  temporary 
makeshift  of  the  legal  tenders  might  safely  give 
place  to  a  larger  national  bank  currency. 

In  the  term  of  1867-68,  the  case  of  Hepburn  v. 
Griswold,  involving  the  constitutionality  of  the 
legal  tenders,  reached  the  Supreme  Court  on  appeal 
from  the  state  court  of  Kentucky,  Up  to  this 
time,  this  appears  to  have  been  the  only  decision 
of  a  highest  state  court  against  the  legal  validity 
of  the  issues.  The  case  was  argued  and  adjourned ; 
and,  at  the  next  term,  1868-69,  it  was  reargued, 


FINANCIAL  AND  LEGAL  TENDER  DECISIONS  393 

but  still  no  decision  was  forthcoming.  That  the 
chief  justice  and  others  of  the  court  felt  uneasy, 
was,  however,  shown  by  three  important  limita- 
tations  which  the  court  in  1866-69  placed  upon 
the  legal  tenders.  In  the  case  of  Lane  County  v. 
Oregon,  the  court  held  that  the  notes  were  not 
legal  tender  for  state  taxes,  because  "  Congress 
must  have  had  in  contemplation  debts  originating 
in  contracts  or  claims  carried  into  judgment  and 
only  debts  of  this  character."  In  the  case  of 
The  Bank  v.  Supervisors,  the  court  took  the  gen 
eral  ground  that  the  United  States  notes  were  "  ob 
ligations,  —  therefore  strictly  securities,"  and  hence 
excepted  from  taxation ;  and,  in  the  case  of  Bronson 
v.  Rodes,  1868-69,  the  court,  with  one  dissent,  en 
forced  a  contract  specifically  promising  the  pay 
ment  of  specie. 

These  cases  not  only  limited  the  uses  of  the 
legal  tenders,  by  distinctly  excepting  from  the 
legal  tender  privilege  all  express  specie  contracts : 
they  also  treated  the  notes  as  evidences  of  national 
debt  rather  than  as  currency ;  and,  in  the  last  of 
the  cases,  the  chief  justice  foreshadowed  more 
sweeping  action  by  the  remark  :  "  The  quality  of 
these  notes  as  legal  tenders  belongs  to  another 
discussion."  At  that  time,  December,  1868,  he  had 
already  made  up  his  mind  to  disallow  the  legal 
tender  clause,  and  was  discussing  the  question 
with  the  other  justices  over  the  case  of  Hepburn 
v.  Griswold.  At  length,  in  December,  1869,  the 
court  came  to  a  determination,  and  directed  opin- 


394  SALMON   PORTLAND 

ions  to  be  prepared.  In  addition  to  the  two 
arguments  heard  in  this  case,  the  question  had  five 
times  been  presented  to  the  court  in  other  cases, 
which  they  had  chosen  to  decide  011  grounds  not 
involving  the  legal  tender  controversy.  No  judicial 
question  was  ever  more  thoroughly  discussed  :  if 
Chase  and  his  colleagues  erred,  it  was  not  for  want 
of  information,  or  of  argument  by  distinguished 
counsel,  including  a  representative  of  the  admin 
istration,  or  of  long  deliberations  by  the  judges. 

Unfortunately  the  question  was  so  serious,  and 
involved  such  strong  political  passions,  that  when 
the  long  expected  decision  was  handed  down,  Feb 
ruary  7,  1870,  the  court  was  almost  evenly  di 
vided  ;  but  in  this  case  the  chief  justice  was  one 
of  the  five  who  united  in  declaring  that  the  Con 
stitution  had  not  authorized  the  issuance  of  notes 
which  should  be  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts 
contracted  before  the  statute.  Since  by  the  Bron- 
son  case  the  court  had  recognized  as  legal  all  con 
tracts  specifying  specie,  the  court  might  be  expected 
thenceforward  to  hold  that  notes  could  be  legal 
tender  only  for  debts  which  had  been  incurred 
after  February  25,  1862,  and  for  which  no  other 
medium  of  payment  had  been  distinctly  stated. 

The  opinion  was  prepared  by  Chase,  and  is  prac 
tically  a  legal  defense  for  a  change  of  mind  which 
was  founded  really  on  financial  and  political  con 
siderations.  The  argument  makes  few  references 
to  previous  decisions  of  the  court  as  sustaining 
its  principles  ;  instead,  there  is  an  appeal  to  the 


FINANCIAL  AND  LEGAL  TENDER  DECISIONS   395 

general  theory  of  the  Constitution,  and  an  argu 
ment  upon  the  unfavorable  effects  of  irredeemable 
paper  money.  To  be  sure,  he  holds  that  the  legal 
tender  act  was  an  impairment  of  contracts,  but  he 
does  not  dispose  of  the  argument  that  the  federal 
government  might,  under  some  circumstances,  im 
pair  contracts.  The  main  argument  is  essentially 
Jeffersonian  :  while  Chase  accepted  the  familiar 
constitutional  doctrine  that  Congress  might  choose 
the  methods  of  exercising  clearly  granted  powers, 
he  denied  that  there  are  any  powers,  such  as  the 
dissenting  justices  described,  resulting  from  the 
general  nature  of  the  Constitution.  On  the  argu 
ment  that  the  legal  tender  quality  was  necessary  as 
a  war  measure,  he  replied  that  this  was  a  mistake 
in  the  facts,  since  notes  without  that  quality  freely 
circulated  on  equal  terms  with  the  legal  tenders. 

Throughout  the  argument  there  is  almost  no 
thing  to  suggest  that  the  writer  had  any  special 
opportunity  of  knowing  the  purposes  of  Congress 
or  judging  the  necessity  of  the  legal  tender  clause. 
But  at  the  end  he  adds  a  paragraph  evidently  in 
tended  as  a  personal  justification  :  "  It  is  not  sur 
prising  that  amid  the  tumult  of  the  late  Civil  War, 
and  under  the  influence  of  apprehensions  for  the 
safety  of  the  republic  almost  universal,  different 
views,  never  before  entertained  by  American 
statesmen  or  jurists,  were  adopted  by  many.  The 
time  was  not  favorable  to  considerate  reflection 
upon  the  constitutional  limits  of  legislative  or  exe 
cutive  authority.  If  power  was  assumed  from 


396  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

patriotic  motives,  the  assumption  found  ready  jus 
tification  in  patriotic  hearts.  Many  who  doubted 
yielded  their  doubts  ;  many  who  did  not  doubt  were 
silent.  Some  who  were  strongly  averse  to  making 
government  notes  a  legal  tender  felt  themselves 
constrained  to  acquiesce  in  the  views  of  the  advo 
cates  of  the  measure.  Not  a  few  who  then  insisted 
upon  its  necessity,  or  acquiesced  in  that  view, 
have  since  the  return  of  peace,  and  under  the  influ 
ence  of  the  calmer  time,  reconsidered  their  conclu 
sions,  and  now  concur  in  those  which  we  have  just 
announced." 

Hepburn  v.  Griswold  appears  to  have  been 
selected  out  of  several  pending  cases,  because  it 
turned  on  a  tender  of  notes  in  satisfaction  of  a 
contract  which  antedated  the  first  legal  tender  act. 
Chase  again  and  again  limits  the  effect  of  the  deci 
sion  to  such  contracts  ;  and  Justice  Grier  expressed 
the  opinion  that  the  legal  tender  act  was  never  in 
tended  to  cover  previous  contracts,  and  that  hence 
the  case  could  be  decided  without  holding  that  act 
unconstitutional.  But  the  principles  of  Chase's 
decision  were  just  as  applicable  to  later  as  to 
earlier  contracts  ;  and  throughout  he  is  arguing 
against  the  whole  system.  The  court  was  not 
then  ready  to  go  further  and  apply  its  principles 
to  contracts  then  in  daily  making  ;  but  Chase  was 
convinced  on  that  subject  also,  and  shortly  drew 
up  an  opinion  which  he  expected  to  file  in  dissent 
in  another  case,  maintaining  that  any  creditor  who 
was  entitled  to  "  dollars  "  might  insist  on  coin  dol 
lars. 


FINANCIAL  AND  LEGAL  TENDER  DECISIONS   397 

The  status  of  the  question  in  February,  1870, 
was  as  follows :  the  Supreme  Court  would  protect 
creditors  in  refusing  to  accept  legal  tenders  for 
debts  incurred  and  contracts  made  before  February 
25, 1862,  or  where  specie  had  been  specifically  pro 
mised  ;  hence  the  legal  tender  acts  were  in  part  un 
constitutional  ;  Chief  Justice  Chase  had  examined 
and  found  insufficient  the  arguments  of  Secretary 
Chase  ;  and  it  was  widely  expected  that  the  court 
would  proceed  to  declare  void  the  whole  system  of 
legal  tenders. 

In  the  country  at  large  the  decision  was  received 
as  though  it  meant  an  immediate  dissolution  of 
existing  contracts.  At  that  time  gold  stood  at 
about  120,  so  that,  if  the  decision  held,  all  debts 
and  obligations  would  speedily  represent  one  and  a 
fifth  times  their  value  as  here  expressed  in  green 
backs.  This  was  a  weak  point  for  the  court,  for  it 
set  against  it  the  powerful  influence  of  many  cor 
porations,  especially  those,  like  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad,  with  maturing  ante  helium  obligations. 
As  a  railroad  president  wrote  to  Chase  :  "  How  do 
you  suppose  the  Railroads  of  the  country  are  to 
pay  their  interest  in  gold  and  receive  only  a  depre 
ciated  currency  for  their  revenues,  limited  as  they 
are  by  their  charters  to  a  fixed  price  ?  Would  n't 
we  have  a  nice  time  in  making  Passengers  pay 
their  fares  in  gold  ?  "  And  another  correspondent 
wrote :  "  Your  decision  in  regard  to  legal  tenders, 
if  not  reversed,  is  likely  to  cause  the  greatest  pos 
sible  distress  and  ruin  among  the  classes  of  people 


398  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

already  in  debt ;  among  the  rest,  very  many  widows 
and  orphans  owing  money  on  mortgage  of  real 
estate  of  a  long  date  back."  To  be  sure  there 
had  been  similar  distress  and  loss  soon  after  the 
time  of  the  passage  of  the  legal  tender  acts  ;  but 
that  episode  was  over.  The  real  difficulty  with  the 
decision  was  that  it  was  an  attempt  to  make  up  for 
the  failure  of  Congress  to  bring  the  country  back 
to  a  specie  basis ;  in  view  of  the  probable  shock  of 
an  immediate  change  it  seems  very  unlikely  that 
the  decision  would  ever  have  been  pronounced,  had 
McCulloch  been  allowed  to  continue  his  contrac 
tion  policy  so  that  the  defects  of  the  system  might 
gradually  have  righted  themselves.  It  was  further 
unfortunate  that  the  court  should  have  taken  the 
responsibility  of  declaring  a  statute  void  even  with 
reference  to  ante  bellum  contracts.  In  his  opinion 
Chase  said :  "  This  court  always  approached  the 
consideration  of  questions  of  this  nature  reluc 
tantly  ;  and  its  constant  rule  of  decision  has  been, 
and  is,  that  Acts  of  Congress  must  be  regarded  as 
constitutional,  unless  clearly  shown  to  be  other 
wise."  The  court  might  safely  have  drawn  further 
limitations  around  the  legal  tenders ;  or  it  might 
have  held  the  act  to  be  a  war  measure  which  would 
expire  by  its  own  virtual  limitation  when  the  war 
was  definitely  over.  To  set  itself  against  Congress, 
against  the  President,  against  corporations,  and 
against  a  popular  prejudice,  and  that  by  a  vote  of 
five  to  three,  was  an  unsafe  experiment.  The  small 
effect  of  the  decision  in  the  money  markets  showed 


FINANCIAL  AND  LEGAL  TENDER  DECISIONS  399 

that  the  great  financiers  did  not  believe  that  the 
legal  tender  quality  would  really  be  destroyed ;  and 
in  view  of  the  greenback  agitation  of  the  time  it 
was  dangerous  to  hold  that  a  war-time  statute 

O 

might  be  invalidated,  after  its  work  was  done  ;  for 
the  same  principle  might  apply  in  the  popular 
mind  to  government  bonds. 

At  the  time  this  decision  was  rendered  the  court 
was  already  in  process  of  reorganization.  Grier, 
one  of  the  five  justices  who  adhered  to  the  decision, 
resigned  before  it  was  formally  pronounced,  so  that 
strictly  speaking  the  court  stood  four  to  three  in 
the  decision.  The  President  at  once  nominated  a 
successor,  Strong  of  Pennsylvania,  and  also  made 
an  additional  appointment,  shortly  before  author 
ized  by  a  statute  increasing  the  number  of  the  as 
sociate  justices  to  eight,  by  designating  Bradley  of 
New  Jersey.  It  was  Chase's  positively  expressed 
belief  that  through  those  appointments  the  court  was 
reorganized  with  the  purpose  of  securing  a  reversal 
of  the  decision  in  the  Hepburn  v.  Griswold  case ; 
and  President  Grant,  his  Attorney-General,  Judge 
Hoar,  and  his  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Mr. 
Boutwell,  were  openly  accused  by  the  press  of  a 
conspiracy  to  "  pack  the  Supreme  Court  for  the 
purpose  of  establishing  repudiation  as  a  constitu 
tional  doctrine." 

If  by  "  packing  "  is  to  be  understood  the  appoint 
ment  of  men  whose  views  on  political  questions 
were  likely  to  be  those  of  the  administration,  the 
charge  is  true,  and  is  equally  true  of  President 


400  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

Lincoln  and  of  all  of  his  successors  down  to  1886 ; 
for  during  that  whole  period  no  Supreme  Court 
judge  was  designated  who  was  not  of  the  same  po 
litical  party  as  the  President  for  the  time  being. 
If  "  packing "  means  the  selection  of  individuals 
with  a  previous  understanding  of  their  views  on 
the  question  of  legal  tenders,  and  with  instructions 
to  bring  about  a  reversal  of  the  actual  decision, 
the  evidence  shows  that  the  charge  is  unfounded. 
Neither  Strong  nor  Bradley  was  the  first  choice  of 
the  President.  To  the  new  judgeship,  created  by 
the  act  of  1869,  the  President  first  nominated 
Attorney-General  Hoar ;  and  when  Justice  Grier, 
in  December,  1869,  gave  in  his  resignation,  to  take 
effect  on  February  first,  the  President  nominated 
as  his  successor  ex-secretary  Stanton,  who  had  the 
support  of  every  Republican  member  of  the  Senate, 
but  died  four  days  afterward.  The  Senate  refused 
to  confirm  Judge  Hoar,  and  thereupon  the  Pre 
sident,  on  February  7,  1870,  simultaneously  nomi 
nated  Bradley  and  Strong. 

On  February  7.  at  noon,  the  court  rendered  its 
decision  in  the  Hepburn  v.  Griswold  case,  and  the 
coincidence  of  date  led  to  a  subsequent  charge, 
that  the  moment  the  President  heard  of  the  de 
cision  he  took  steps  to  annul  it  by  appointing  two 
faithful  supporters  of  the  legal  tender  act ;  but 
Judge  Hoar  was  consulted  upon  these  appoint 
ments,  and  no  suggestion  was  made  to  him  or  by 
him  that  the  legal  tender  cases  bore  on  the  appoint 
ments  ;  the  members  of  the  cabinet  when  the  nomi- 


FINANCIAL  AND  LEGAL  TENDER  DECISIONS  401 

nations  were  discussed  had  no  knowledge  of  any 
"  packing ;  "  and  it  is  completely  established  that, 
unless  by  some  unprofessional  indiscretion  of  one 
of  the  justices,  the  nature  of  the  decision  of  the 
court  was  not  known  to  the  President  at  the  time 
the  two  new  judges  were  nominated ;  and  Judge 
Hoar  expected  until  the  decision  was  announced 
that  Chase  would  stand  for  the  legality  of  the  legal 
tenders. 

Though  the  President  and  the  Attorney-Gen 
eral  stand  absolved  from  a  deliberate  purpose  of 
changing  a  majority  of  four  to  three  into  a  minor 
ity  of  four  to  five,  there  can  be  no  reasonable 
doubt  that  the  President  and  his  advisers  intended, 
as  vacancies  occurred  in  the  court,  to  fill  them  with 
men  who  would  reflect  the  opinions  of  the  Republi 
can  party ;  and  that  party  had  declined  to  commit 
itself  even  to  the  speedy  restoration  of  the  notes  to 
a  gold  basis.  It  was  true  that  Strong,  as  state 
judge  in  Pennsylvania,  had  rendered  a  decision  in 
favor  of  the  constitutionality  of  the  legal  tenders, 
and  so  had  most  of  the  judges  in  the  sixteen  other 
States  before  whom  the  question  had  come.  Yet 
there  was  no  lack  of  good  lawyers  in  the  Republi 
can  party  who  had  not  committed  themselves  upon 
the  question.  Had  it  been  the  purpose  of  the 
President  to  choose  two  judges  who  would  balance 
each  other,  he  could  have  found  two  such  men ; 
he  and  his  advisers,  with  few  exceptions,  desired 
the  legal  tender  act  to  stand  ;  and  the  appointments 
were  generally  taken  to  mean  that  it  would  be  re 
affirmed. 


402  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

Justice  Strong  entered  the  court  February  14, 
and  Justice  Bradley,  March  24  ;  whatever  the  rea 
son  for  their  appointments,  the  two  new  justices 
were  no  sooner  inducted  than  they  began  a  dra 
matic  struggle  by  seeking  to  call  up  a  pending  case 
upon  which  the  legal  tender  decision  might  be  re 
versed  in  the  same  term  of  the  court  in  which  it 
had  been  rendered.  Among  the  long-standing 
causes  not  yet  decided  was  Lathams  v.  United 
States,  a  suit  involving  the  question  of  specie  con 
tracts.  The  Lathams  had  a  contract  with  the 
United  States,  executed  in  1855,  with  a  stipulation 
that  payments  were  to  be  made  in  "  good  and  law 
ful  money  of  the  coin  of  the  United  States  ; "  but 
Chase,  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  in  1863  re 
fused  to  pay  coin,  and  tendered  greenbacks,  which 
had  been  received  under  protest.  Suits,  claiming 
the  difference  in  value  between  greenbacks  and  gold 
coin,  had  been  continued,  to  wait  for  the  decision 
of  the  principle  in  the  Hepburn  Case.  Although 
special  leave  was  given  to  the  United  States  to 
appear  in  the  case  because  it  involved  the  consti 
tutionality  of  an  act  of  Congress,  Chase  foresaw 
trouble  and  repeatedly  announced  that  no  further 
arguments  would  be  heard  on  the  legal  tender 
question,  that  having  already  been  decided  in  the 
Hepburn  Case.  However,  on  the  second  day  after 
Bradley  formally  took  his  seat,  the  new  judge  re 
opened  the  question  by  urging  the  court  to  take  up 
the  Lathams  Case,  and  suggesting  that  the  legal 
tender  question  might  thereupon  be  argued;  the 


FINANCIAL  AND  LEGAL  TENDER  DECISIONS  403 

three  dissentients  in  the  Hepburn  Case  voted  with 
the  two  incoming  judges  to  hear  new  arguments, 
with  the  plain  intention  to  reverse  the  recent  de 
cision  forthwith.  Chase  and  his  three  adherents 
protested,  stood  on  the  technicalities  of  the  internal 
rules  of  the  court,  and  resisted  to  the  utmost ;  but 
in  vain.  When  the  case  came  on  for  argument, 
however,  the  counsel  for  the  Lathams,  J.  M.  Car 
lisle,  declined  to  proceed  further,  on  the  ground 
that  the  rights  of  his  clients  were  already  pro 
tected  ;  and  against  the  protest  of  Justice  Bradley 
the  case  was  discontinued. 

In  the  course  of  the  proceedings  occurred  an 
incident  which  showed  tension  and  almost  hostility 
between  the  two  factions  of  the  court;  the  chief 
justice  stated  that  the  court  had  agreed  that  the 
principle  of  the  Hepburn  v.  Griswold  case  should 
apply  to  all  later  cases.  Justice  Miller  thereupon 
stated  that  this  was  not  the  statement  of  the  court 
but  of  the  chief  justice,  and  the  justices  on  the 
bench  expressed  their  differences  of  memory  in 
unjudicial  fashion.  The  effect  of  the  withdrawal 
of  this  case  was  to  prevent  the  raising  of  the  legal 
tender  question  at  that  time,  and  the  court  finally 
adjourned  without  further  action,  But  its  un 
settled  state  of  opinion  was  well  known ;  and  it 
was  confidently  predicted  that  within  a  few  months 
it  would  overrule  itself. 

The  expectation  that  the  legal  tenders  would 
again  be  held  constitutional  was  so  widespread 
that  the  premium  on  gold  was  not  reduced,  and 


404  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

there  was  no  general  tendency  to  specify  coin  in 
contracts.  Meanwhile  the  so-called  Sheep  case 
(Knox  v.  Lee)  had  long  been  pending  in  the  court, 
and  it  involved  the  question  of  contracts  subse 
quent  in  date  to  the  legal-tender  act.  The  contro 
versy  had  arisen  in  March,  1863,  and  the  United 
States  Circuit  Court  of  Texas  had  held  in  1867 
that  the  contract  might  be  satisfied  by  the  payment 
of  greenbacks ;  at  the  same  time  came  up  the  case 
of  Parker  v.  Davis,  brought  up  from  the  Massa 
chusetts  state  courts,  which  involved  the  question 
of  a  contract  made  before  1863.  In  the  term  of 
1870-71  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  heard 
elaborate  arguments  in  these  cases  ;  but  to  listen  to 
argument  at  all  was  evidence  that  the  court  did  not 
intend  to  hold  itself  bound  by  the  decision  in  the 
case  of  Hepburn  v.  Griswold.  When,  on  May  1, 
1871,  a  decision  was  announced,  the  opinion  of  the 
majority  of  the  court  was  drawn  by  Justice  Strong 
supported  by  four  other  justices,  and  the  chief 
justice,  with  the  three  who  had  agreed  with  him 
in  1870,  dissented.  But  though  the  decision  was 
announced,  the  court  took  the  very  unusual  step 
of  delaying  the  statement  of  its  reasons.  The 
chief  justice  was  very  ill,  and  unable  to  write  an 
argument,  and  the  texts  of  the  opinions  were  there 
fore  not  made  public  till  January  15,  1872. 

This  time  the  court  distinctly  faced  the  question 
both  of  ante  bellum  and  of  later  contracts,  and  the 
first  paragraph  contains  the  essence  of  the  whole 
argument :  "  It  would  be  difficult  to  overestimate 


FINANCIAL  AND  LEGAL  TENDER  DECISIONS  405 

the  consequences  which  must  follow  our  decision. 
They  will  affect  the  entire  business  of  the  country, 
and  take  hold  of  the  possible  continued  existence 
of  the  government.  If  it  be  held  by  this  court 
that  Congress  had  no  constitutional  power,  under 
any  circumstances  or  in  any  emergency,  to  make 
treasury  notes  a  legal  tender  for  the  payment  of 
all  debts  (a  power  confessedly  possessed  by  every 
independent  sovereignty  other  than  the  United 
States),  the  government  is  without  the  means  of 
self-preservation  which,  all  must  admit,  may  in  cer 
tain  contingencies  become  indispensable,  even  if 
they  were  not  so  when  the  acts  of  Congress  now 
called  in  question  were  enacted.  ...  If,  contrary 
to  the  expectation  of  all  parties  to  these  contracts, 
legal  tender  notes  are  rendered  unavailable,  the 
government  has  become  an  instrument  of  the  gross 
est  injustice ;  all  debtors  are  loaded  with  an  obliga 
tion  it  was  never  contemplated  they  should  assume ; 
a  large  percentage  is  added  to  every  debt,  and  such 
must  become  the  demand  for  gold  to  satisfy  con 
tracts,  that  ruinous  sacrifices,  general  distress,  and 
bankruptcy  may  be  expected." 

The  court  was  careful  not  to  pin  itself  too 
closely  to  specific  powers  of  Congress ;  instead,  it 
recognized  "  that  general  power  over  currency 
which  has  always  been  an  acknowledged  attribute 
of  sovereignty  in  every  other  civilized  country  than 
our  own."  To  this  general  power  the  court  adds 
a  distinct  assertion  of  the  doctrine  of  resulting 
powers:  "It  is  allowable  to  group  together  any 


406  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

number  of  them  and  infer  from  them  all  that  the 
power  claimed  has  been  conferred."  The  court  also 
argues  very  strongly  that  the  legal  tender  quality 
was  absolutely  necessary  for  the  life  of  the  govern 
ment.  "  Something  revived  the  drooping  faith  of 
the  people  ;  something  brought  immediately  to  the 
government's  aid  the  resources  of  the  nation,  and 
something  enabled  the  successful  prosecution  of 
the  war,  and  the  preservation  of  the  national  life. 
What  was  it,  if  not  the  legal  tender  enactments  ?  " 

Finally,  the  court  left  no  doubt  as  to  the  purpose 
of  its  decision.  "  We  hold  the  acts  of  Congress 
constitutional  as  applied  to  contracts  made  either 
before  or  after  their  passage.  In  so  holding  we 
overrule  so  much  of  what  was  decided  in  Hepburn 
v.  Griswold,  8  Wallace,  603,  as  ruled  the  Acts  un 
warranted  by  the  Constitution  so  far  as  they  apply 
to  contracts  made  before  their  enactment.  That 
case  was  decided  by  a  divided  court,  and  by  a  court 
having  a  less  number  of  judges  than  the  law  then 
in  existence  provided  this  court  shall  have.  .  .  . 
And  it  is  no  unprecedented  thing  in  courts  of  last 
resort,  both  in  this  country  and  in  England,  to 
overrule  decisions  previously  made.  We  agree 
this  should  not  be  done  inconsiderately,  but  in  a 
case  of  such  far-reaching  consequences  as  the  pre 
sent,  thoroughly  convinced  as  we  are  that  Congress 
has  not  transgressed  its  powers,  we  regard  it  as 
our  duty  so  to  decide  and  to  affirm  both  these 
judgments." 

The  separate  concurring  opinion  of  Bradley  was 


FINANCIAL  AND  LEGAL  TENDER  DECISIONS   407 

based  not  so  much  on  tne  theory  of  constitutional 
government  as  on  what  governments  ought  in  the  na 
ture  of  things  to  be.  "  It  seems  to  be  a  self-evident 
proposition  that  it  (the  general  government)  is  in 
vested  with  all  these  inherent  and  implied  powers 
which  at  the  time  of  adopting  the  Constitution 
were  generally  considered  to  belong  to  every  gov 
ernment  as  such."  He  goes  further:  Since  the 
States  are  prohibited  from  issuing  legal  tender 
notes,  and  there  is  no  express  prohibition  of  the 
federal  government,  it  must  have  been  expected 
that  it  would  issue  them,  and  the  power  to  emit 
treasury  notes  "  has  been  exercised  by  the  govern 
ment  without  question  for  a  large  portion  of  its 
history.  This  being  conceded,  the  incidental  power 
of  giving  such  bills  the  quality  of  legal  tender  fol 
lows  almost  as  a  matter  of  course.  .  .  .  Can  the 
poor  man's  cattle  and  horses  and  corn  be  thus 
taken  by  the  government  as  the  public  exigency 
requires  it,  and  cannot  the  rich  man's  notes  and 
bonds  be  in  like  manner  taken  to  reach  the  same 
end?" 

For  our  purposes  the  most  important  of  the 
justices'  opinions  is  that  filed  by  the  chief  justice, 
which  was  a  disquisition  in  the  familiar  vein  on  the 
implied  powers  of  Congress  and  the  limitations  on 
Congress.  It  was  impossible  for  him  to  ignore  the 
criticism  made  upon  him  in  the  majority  opinion, 
that  "  even  the  head  of  the  treasury  represented  to 
Congress  the  necessity  for  making  the  new  issues 
legal  tender,  or  rather,  declared  it  impossible  to 


408  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

avoid  the  necessity."  The  statement  was  undeni 
able,  and  the  only  manly  explanation  was  that 
which  he  made  :  "  Examination  and  reflection  under 
more  propitious  circumstances  have  satisfied  him 
that  this  opinion  was  erroneous,  and  he  does  not 
hesitate  to  declare  it.  He  would  do  so  just  as  un 
hesitatingly  if  his  favor  to  the  legal  tender  clause 
had  been  at  that  time  decided,  and  his  opinion  as 
to  the  constitutionality  of  the  measure  clear." 

Chase's  attitude  upon  the  legal  tenders  is  one  of 
the  critical  points  in  his  life,  and  involves  three 
distinct  questions,  —  the  ultimate  argument  as  to 
the  constitutionality  of  the  statutes,  the  argument 
as  presented  by  the  Supreme  Court,  and  the  re 
sponsibility  for  his  change  of  mind.  The  question 
of  constitutionality  goes  to  the  very  bottom  of  the 
national  authority.  We  have  already  seen  that 
no  suggestion  of  legal-tender  notes  had  ever  been 
taken  up  by  a  responsible  administrator  till 
Chase's  letter  to  the  Committee  of  Ways  and 
Means  in  February,  1862,  although  treasury  notes 
had  been  very  familiar.  Perhaps  the  argument 
over  the  constitutionality  of  forced  issues  may  best 
be  put  in  the  form  that  it  not  only  would  have 
been  held  unconstitutional  by  the  Supreme  Court 
before  the  Civil  War,  but  would  have  been  con 
trary  to  the  principles  of  government  then  estab 
lished  ;  but  that  during  and  after  the  Civil  War 
it  was  constitutional  because  the  government  had 
changed  its  foundations.  Both  Congress  and  the 
President  had  freely  departed  in  many  directions 


FINANCIAL  AND  LEGAL  TENDER  DECISIONS   409 

from  any  power  reasonably  implied  in  the  Consti 
tution,  but  at  the  end  of  the  Civil  War  most  of 
these  extraordinary  powers  lapsed,  from  the  cessa 
tion  of  the  circumstances  which  called  them  out ; 
and  by  1871  reconstruction  was  practically  ended, 
and  thus  another  group  of  assailable  acts  ceased  to 
have  force.  The  legal  tender  issue  was  one  of  the 
few  large  extensions  of  national  powers  that  con 
tinued  still  to  have  the  same  influence  in  time  of 
peace  ;  and  Chase's  effort  was  to  restore  that  power 
also  to  ante-bellum  conditions.  Had  he  been  able 
to  carry  with  him  a  decided  majority  of  the  court, 
it  is  probable  that  the  country  would  have  acqui 
esced  ;  but  the  division  showed  the  powerful  influ 
ence  on  public  life  and  private  finances  caused  by 
the  changes  which  had  been  brought  about  by  the 
creation  of  the  notes. 

The  arguments  in  both  the  Hepburn  and  Legal- 
Tender  cases  were  really  less  legal  than  political. 
Neither  side  was  able  to  find  a  series  of  consistent 
precedents  either  in  state  or  national  decisions; 
and  both  majority  and  minority  opinions  consist  in 
the  first  place  of  elaborate  essays  on  the  nature  of 
government  in  general  and  especially  on  the  fed 
eral  government,  with  appropriate  quotations  from 
Marshall's  decisions  ;  and  in  the  second  place  of 
long  and  often  passionate  arguments  as  to  what  was 
most  expedient  for  the  welfare  of  the  country  dur 
ing  the  Civil  War.  It  is  noteworthy  that  both 
sides  avoided  the  issue  of  treating  the  legal  tenders 
as  simply  a  war  measure  which  ceased  to  have 


410  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

force  when  the  war  was  over,  but  preferred  to  dis 
cuss  the  nature  of  legal  tenders  as  incidental  to  the 
regulation  of  the  currency  and  to  general  financial 
powers.  In  dignity  and  logic  the  chief  justice 
was  superior  to  his  opponents,  and  pointed  out  with 
clearness  the  danger  of  the  principle,  announced 
by  the  majority,  that  the  government  might  per 
form  certain  acts,  because  they  were  usual  among 
sovereign  powers.  Throughout  the  discussion  is 
evident  also  the  curious  feeling  of  the  sanctity  of 
legal  tender  notes,  because  they  were  supposed  to 
have  performed  a  great  service  in  time  of  war. 
This  was  perhaps  a  result  of  the  rising  tide  of 
demagogism  in  the  country,  which  threatened  to 
make  wholly  irredeemable  the  already  depreciated 
paper  notes,  on  precisely  the  ground  stated  by  Jus 
tice  Bradley,  —  the  comparison  of  "  the  poor  man's 
cattle  and  houses  "with  "the  rich  man's  notes  and 
bonds." 

As  to  Chase's  change  of  mind,  his  own  state 
ment  in  his  two  opinions  is  his  best  defense.  Per 
haps  he  might  have  said  more ;  he  might  have 
urged  that  he  was  returning  to  the  convictions  of  a 
lifetime,  disturbed  for  the  time  being  by  the  anxi 
eties  of  his  secretaryship.  When  the  justices  des 
canted  on  the  importance  of  the  national  currency, 
Chase  could  have  replied  that  the  permanent  na 
tional  currency  ought  not  to  be,  and  was  not  in 
tended  to  be,  composed  of  government  notes  with 
the  legal  tender  quality,  but  of  national  bank 
notes,  which  could  do  their  work  without  any  such 


FINANCIAL  AND  LEGAL  TENDER  DECISIONS   411 

support.  That  sober  judgment  which  absolves 
Lincoln  for  his  assumption  of  hitherto  undreamed 
powers,  and  approves  the  progressive  changes  in 
his  point  of  view  towards  both  national  and  re 
bellious  governments,  must  also  apply  to  Chase. 
In  1869  he  saw  results  of  his  own  action  which 
he  could  not  see  seven  years  before. 

Yet  his  attitude  on  the  legal  tenders  was  unfor 
tunate,  both  for  his  reputation  and  for  the  welfare 
of  the  country ;  and  his  connection  with  the  issue  of 
the  legal  tenders  put  it  out  of  his  power  to  help  in 
the  restoration  of  the  government  to  the  sounder 
financial  principles  for  which  he  was  so  ardent. 
His  own  honesty  stood  in  his  way,  for  he  could  not 
convince  people  that  he  had  in  1862  assented  to  a 
measure  really  fraught  with  danger  to  the  country; 
and  when  he  found  that  he  could  count  on  but  five 
judges  out  of  eight,  it  would  have  been  politic  to 
proceed  on  the  lines  of  the  Bronson  and  Oregon 
cases,  setting  up  all  the  limitations  possible  on 
the  exercise  of  the  power,  but  leaving  the  legal 
tenders  where  they  were.  Undoubtedly  Chase's 
judgment  was  better  in  1869  than  in  1862 ;  the 
country  would  have  been  better  off  if  it  had  not 
insisted  on  the  legal  tender  act ;  and  it  would  have 
been  better  off  if  it  could  have  accepted  the  judg 
ment  of  1869  ;  but  that  judgment  was  pronounced 
with  an  incomplete  court,  which  in  the  nature  of 
things  must  speedily  be  remodeled,  and  it  would 
have  been  wiser  not  to  provoke  the  issue  of  a 
reversal. 


412  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

The  reputation  and  prestige  of  the  court  neces 
sarily  suffered  from  the  sudden  change  of  front,  a 
change  of  which  there  has  been  but  one  subsequent 
instance.  "  The  rehearing,"  said  the  "  Nation  "  in 
1871,  "  on  the  first  point,  is  an  acknowledgment 
by  the  court  of  the  soundness  of  the  arithmetical 
view  of  its  powers,  e.  g.,  that  the  claims  of  its 
decisions  to  popular  respect  depend  for  their  valid 
ity  on  the  number  of  judges  who  concur  in  them. 
Considering  that  Congress  has  the  right  to  increase 
the  number  of  judges  at  pleasure,  it  is  hardly  short 
of  suicidal  for  the  court  to  give  any  countenance 
to  the  notion  that  nine  judges  have  power  which 
seven  have  not,  or  that  a  majority  of  three  could 
give  weight  to  a  judgment  which  a  majority  of  one 
could  not  give  it.  We  therefore  loo1*"  on  the 
reopening  of  the  question  of  the  applicability  of 
the  legal-tender  act  to  contracts  made  before  Feb 
ruary,  1862,  as  a  great  misfortune." 

Chase's  service  on  the  Supreme  Court  was  for 
many  reasons  onerous  :  the  docket  was  long  and 
the  decisions  many  and  intricate ;  his  circuit  court 
business  was  also  harassing,  and  his  feeling  of 
responsibility  in  public  affairs  kept  him  upon  a 
continual  strain.  The  contest  over  the  legal  tender 
decision  in  the  spring  of  1870  was  especially  try 
ing,  for  it  seemed  to  him  an  attempt  to  undo  the 
most  important  service  which  the  court  had  ren 
dered  the  country.  He  was  a  man  of  strong  and 
aggressive  health,  but  he  never  spared  himself  or 
distributed  his  work  so  as  to  keep  up  his  highest 


FINANCIAL  AND  LEGAL  TENDER  DECISIONS  413 

efficiency.  In  August,  1870,  he  was  seized  with 
paralysis.  Though  the  attack  was  severe,  he  gradu 
ally  improved,  but  was  not  able  to  take  his  place 
on  the  bench  during  the  term  of  1870—71.  During 
1871  he  spent  a  considerable  part  of  his  time  in 
health  resorts,  east  and  west,  and  even  contem 
plated  going  abroad.  He  did,  however,  sit  with 
the  court  during  the  terms  of  1871-72  and  1872- 
73,  and  prepared  many  opinions,  but  he  felt  ex 
hausted  and  would  have  been  glad  to  retire 
altogether  had  the  law  given  the  privilege  at  an 
earlier  age  than  seventy  years. 

An  evidence  that  he  had  lost  his  keenness  of  ob 
servation  and  discrimination  was  his  continued 
hope  of  the  Democratic  nomination  in  1872. 
Many  obscure  correspondents  during  1869,  1870, 
and  1871  assured  him  of  their  support,  while 
Cassius  M.  Clay  got  twenty  leading  Democrats  to 
agree  to  stand  by  him.  Chase  could  no  longer 
claim  to  be  a  Republican:  he  was  much  dis 
appointed  in  General  Grant,  and  would  have  been 
glad  to  aid  in  his  defeat.  In  March,  1872,  he 
pulled  some  wires  for  the  Cincinnati  Liberal  Con 
vention,  and  wrote  in  accustomed  phraseology  that 
he  did  not  seek  a  nomination,  but  "  if  those  who 
agree  with  me  in  principles  think  that  my  nomi 
nation  will  promote  the  interests  of  the  country,  I 
shall  not  refuse  the  use  of  my  name."  When 
Greeley  was  nominated  he  announced  his  purpose 
of  voting  for  him.  "  I  am,"  he  wrote,  "  as  you  are 
aware,  a  Democrat8  separated  in  nothing  from  the 


414  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

Democrats  of  the  Jackson  and  Benton  school, 
except  iny  convictions  on  the  slavery  question  in 
times  past,  and  now  by  nothing." 

In  the  spring  of  1873  he  appeared  noticeably 
older  and  weaker ;  though  he  felt  great  interest  in 
the  Slaughter  House  cases,  he  was  not  able  to  pre 
pare  a  dissenting  opinion.  Indeed,  he  began  to 
look  forward  to  his  end,  and  chose  Judge  Warden 
to  be  his  biographer ;  in  his  hands  he  placed  his 
most  confidential  journals  and  correspondence,  and 
to  him  he  talked  freely  about  the  events  of  his 
life.  On  May  6, 1873,  a  second  shock  of  paralysis 
came  upon  him  while  in  New  York.  He  never 
recovered  consciousness,  and  died,  May  7,  1873, 
at  the  premature  age  of  sixty-five. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE   MAN 

CHASE'S  public  life  has  now  been  reviewed,  and 
it  remains  to  sum  up  the  things  which  made  him  so 
strong  a  personality,  so  distinguished  a  man,  and 
so  important  a  statesman.  In  person  he  was  one  of 
the  most  striking  men  of  his  time.  More  than  six 
feet  tall,  with  a  broad  and  majestic  form,  strongly 
carved  and  individual  features,  a  keen  eye,  and  re 
solute  although  opinionated  mouth,  he  always  made 
an  impression  of  strength,  readiness,  and  power.  In 
massiveness  and  appearance  of  reserve  strength  he 
is  comparable  with  Webster,  whom  he  somewhat 
resembled  in  feature.  A  little  conscious  of  his 
own  advantages  of  person,  he  was  always  careful 
to  set  them  off  with  appropriate  dress.  In  man 
ner  he  was  agreeable  but  never  deferential.  Most 
people  who  met  him  admired  his  incisiveness  and 
force,  but  he  did  not  hold  back  his  opinions,  and 
was  not  always  considerate  in  expressing  them. 
Among  his  own  friends  he  was  genial,  and  even 
warm-hearted  and  affectionate,  but  he  had  a  strong 
sense  of  what  was  due  him,  and  sometimes  his  tem 
per  got  the  better  of  his  judgment,  and  he  would 
break  out  into  reproaches.  He  wrote  a  great  deal 


416  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

with  his  own  hand  as  well  as  through  secretaries, 
and  his  handwriting,  never  remarkably  legible,  at 
last  became  difficult  to  read.  He  was  methodical 
in  his  habits,  but  was  too  busy  to  hold  himself 
to  any  routine,  and  his  papers  abound  in  journals 
and  letter-books  begun  but  not  completed. 

Chase  was  always  fond  of  building  houses  and 
laying  out  grounds,  and  in  the  course  of  his  life 
owned  four  or  five  different  houses  :  two  in  Cincin 
nati,  both  of  which  were  sources  of  expense  long 
after  he  had  ceased  to  occupy  them  ;  the  handsome 
house  which  he  built  in  Columbus  while  gover 
nor  ;  and  finally  his  estate  of  Edgewood,  about  two 
miles  west  of  the  Capitol  at  Washington.  This 
estate  of  fifty-five  acres  with  a  broad,  old-fashioned 
house,  crowning  a  hill,  though  it  absorbed  plenty 
of  money  for  repairs  and  improvements,  turned 
out  in  the  end  to  have  been  one  of  the  few  good 
investments  that  he  made.  He  took  great  plea 
sure  in  planning  and  occupying  it,  and  though  not 
very  far  from  the  Capitol,  it  was  at  that  time  quite 
outside  the  city,  and  served  him  as  a  country  resi 
dence. 

Throughout  his  life  Chase  suffered  inconvenience 
and  loss  because  he  could  not  make  up  his  mind  to 
turn  into  cash  a  sufficient  part  of  his  property  to 
extinguish  his  debts.  Some  parts  of  his  real  estate 
he  was  unable  to  sell  until  his  youngest  daughter 
reached  her  majority,  in  1865,  inasmuch  as  she 
had  an  interest  in  it ;  and  it  was  not  until  about 
18G7  that  the  sales  of  real  estate  in  Cincinnati 


THE  MAN  417 

and  Brooklyn  cleared  him  of  long-standing  debts. 
Then  for  a  time  he  was  prosperous.  He  had  some 
railroad  and  telegraph  stock  which  suddenly  be 
came  valuable,  and  at  one  time  he  held  in  his  pos 
session  marketable  securities  to  the  value  of  nearly 
150,000  ;  but  in  his  private  finances  he  never  was 
happy.  On  the  advice  of  one  of  his  oldest  and 
shrewdest  friends,  Joshua  Hanna,  he  put  a  little 
money  into  gold  mining  stock,  with  the  usual  re 
sult  that  the  stamp  mill  was  always  "  just  about  to 
start  up." 

Ever  since  his  first  days  in  the  Treasury  he  had 
retained  a  warm  personal  friendship  for  Jay  Cooke, 
the  great  Philadelphia  banker,  as  well  as  for  his 
brother,  H.  D.  Cooke  of  Washington,  who  later 
became  his  executor.  Jay  Cooke  made  a  large 
fortune,  partly  out  of  his  extensive  banking  busi 
ness,  partly  out  of  his  deserved  profits  from  the 
agency  for  the  sale  of  government  bonds,  and 
partly  through  his  interest  in  the  Northern  Pacific 
Railroad.  For  Chase's  own  finances  this  friend 
ship  was  disastrous.  He  had  several  times  pro 
tested  against  offers  of  Mr.  Cooke  to  enrich  him 
against  his  will,  and  in  1868  declined  to  accept  cer 
tain  stock  which  Cooke  informed  him  had  paid  for 
itself  through  the  simple  process  of  charging  Chase 
with  the  cost  price  of  the  securities  and  selling 
them  out  at  an  advance  without  his  having  fur 
nished  any  money,  given  any  directions,  or  assumed 
any  responsibility.  On  this  episode  Chase  wrote : 
"  I  shall  never  cease  to  be  glad  and  grateful  that  I 


418  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

laid  down  for  myself  the  rule,  after  Congress  gave 
me  such  great  powers,  enabling  me  to  raise  and 
depress  values  very  largely  at  my  discretion,  that  I 
would  have  nothing  to  do,  directly  or  indirectly, 
with  speculations  or  transactions,  in  gold  or  securi 
ties  of  any  sort,  for  my  own  or  anybody's  private 
benefit." 

He  did,  however,  accept  Cooke's  advice  on  cer 
tain  cash  investments  which  proved  profitable,  and 
in  December,  1869,  turned  over  to  him  cash  and 
cash  securities  to  the  value  of  $40,000,  for  which 
he  took  150,000  of  Northern  Pacific  bonds  at  80, 
—  they  were  then  paying  seven  per  cent.  The 
investment  was  speculative  and  eventually  proved 
a  heavy  loss,  as  did  also  an  investment  of  19000  in 
Potomac  Ferry  stock  which  the  Cookes  carried  for 
him  on  their  books  for  six  years,  till  it  had  by  in 
terest  charges  accumulated  to  $14,000.  Notwith 
standing  an  excellent  salary  as  chief  justice  and 
considerable  revenues  from  his  investments,  the 
executors  of  the  chief  justice  found  little  to  show 
at  the  end  of  his  eight  years'  t  service,  except 
the  estate  of  Edgewood.  His  daughters,  however, 
both  married  men  of  property,  and  were  not  de 
pendent  upon  him. 

One  reason  why  Chase  rarely  had  ready  money 
was  his  generosity  towards  his  poor  relations. 
Year  after  year  he  sent  money  to  certain  pension 
ers  whose  lot  he  raised  out  of  misery  into  comfort. 
Throughout  his  early  life  brothers,  sisters,  nephews, 
and  nieces  looked  to  him  for  counsel,  and  some- 


THE  MAN  419 

times  for  support ;   and  he  was  subject  to  many 
calls  for  charity  and  public  subscriptions. 

Chase  was  a  man  of  warm  attachments,  and  in 
the  twenty  years  that  he  lived  a  widower  he  suf 
fered  for  the  lack  of  his  wife's  companionship, 
sympathy,  and  counsel.  Many  people  predicted 
that  he  would  marry  a  fourth  time ;  and  there  were 
several  ladies  in  whom  he  took  a  cautious  interest, 
and  one  who  was  thought  by  his  friends  to  be  se 
lected.  His  grown  daughter  was  not  likely  to  feel 
enthusiastic  over  a  fourth  marriage ;  and  when  this 
lady  came  by  invitation  to  visit  at  his  house  she 
did  not  find  a  warm  atmosphere,  and  the  visit  was 
never  repeated.  He  had  little  inclination  to  change 
his  estate  again,  for  so  long  as  he  lived  his  daugh 
ters  continued  to  be  his  greatest  human  interest 
and  happiness.  The  attachment  of  the  brilliant 
young  Senator  Sprague  for  Miss  Chase  became  evi 
dent  soon  after  they  went  to  Washington  in  1861, 
and  they  were  married  in  much  state.  Sprague 
was  afterwards  governor  of  Rhode  Island,  was  a 
warm  supporter  of  Chase  in  his  presidential  aspi 
rations,  and  cordially  welcomed  him  to  his  home 
and  his  circle  of  friends  in  Rhode  Island ;  and  it 
was  for  many  years  the  custom  of  the  secretary 
and  of  the  chief  justice  to  spend  at  least  part  of 
the  summer  at  Narragansett  Pier,  though  he  was 
also  fond  of  the  White  Mountains.  His  younger 
daughter,  Nettie,  was  married,  March  23,  1871,  to 
Mr.  W.  S.  Hoyt  of  New  York,  and  both  sisters 
remained  not  only  attached  to  their  father,  but  in 


420  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

close  relations  with  him,  and  shared  in  his  interests 
and  his  career. 

No  account  of  Mr.  Chase  could  be  complete 
which  ignored  the  remarkable  connection  of  Kate 
Chase,  later  Mrs.  Sprague,  with  her  father's  public 
life.  Young,  remarkably  beautiful,  regal,  and  cap 
tivating,  she  made  it  her  business  in  life  to  estab 
lish  cordial  relations  with  his  political  friends,  and 
she  was  a  gracious  hostess  for  the  hospitality  which 
her  father  enjoyed  giving ;  ambassadors,  senators, 
and  politicians  were  eager  for  her  good-will  and 
willing  to  promise  her  aid,  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  had 
battles  royal  with  her  for  (as  she  said)  coming  to 
the  receptions  at  the  White  House  as  a  guest  and 
holding  court  on  her  own  account.  She  had  a  re 
solute  purpose  to  bring  about  her  father's  nomina 
tion  in  1864,  and  perhaps  her  influence  held  her 
father  to  his  opposition  to  Lincoln.  Indeed,  this 
remarkable  woman  was  generally  considered  to  be 
a  political  force  of  magnitude,  and  she  is  the  only 
woman  in  the  history  of  the  United  States  who  has 
had  such  public  influence.  She  felt  keenly  indig 
nant  with  Lincoln  for  letting  her  father  leave  the 
Treasury,  and  jokingly  accused  Sumner  on  the  day 
of  the  nomination  of  the  chief  justice  of  being  in 
a  plot  to  "  shelve  her  father."  The  influence  and 
spirit  of  his  daughter  again  held  Chase  up  to  his 
strife  for  the  presidency  in  1868.  She  was  virtu 
ally  his  manager  in  New  York,  and  competent 
judges  have  believed  that  had  she  been  able  to  go 
into  the  convention  and  make  her  combinations  on 
the  spot  she  would  have  secured  his  nomination. 


THE  MAN  421 

Within  his  family  Chase  unbent  from  that  Jove- 
like  serenity  which  distinguished  him,  and  was 
an  interesting  and  lovable  man.  Throughout  his 
life  he  wrote  frequently  to  his  children  with  sym 
pathy,  interest,  and  good  sense.  His  numerous 
kindred  were  welcomed  to  his  house.  Perhaps  he 
needed  a  more  robustious  atmosphere  ;  perhaps  his 
public  life  would  have  been  freer  from  mistake  had 
he  lived  more  with  other  public  men  and  been 
more  subject  to  the  virile  criticism  of  less  admiring 
associates. 

Chase  was  a  man  who  cared  very  much  for  the 
favorable  opinion  of  other  people,  and  who  loved 
to  serve  and  advise  his  friends.  He  genuinely 
liked  men  and  women,  liked  to  be  among  them, 
liked  to  be  well  thought  of  by  them ;  and  he  had 
many  devoted  friends,  especially  among  younger 
men.  For  instance,  he  enjoyed  the  cordial  regard 
of  the  young,  brilliant,  and  rising  public  man, 
James  A.  Garfield.  He  was  pleased  with  the 
blunt,  straightforward  respect  of  men  like  Edward 
L.  Pierce,  with  whom  he  was  in  correspondence 
for  more  than  twenty  years.  From  Major  Dwight 
Bannister,  of  Iowa,  Chase  received  almost  chivalric 
tokens  of  his  interest,  for  he  offered  to  throw  up 
his  profession  that  he  might  take  care  of  Chase  in 
his  last  illness.  He  had  the  power  of  attaching 
such  men  and  making  them  lifelong  correspond 
ents,  admirers,  and  political  aids. 

To  men  more  nearly  of  his  own  age  and  position 
in  life  Chase  was  less  attractive.  Upright,  honor- 


422  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

able,  kindly,  accustomed  from  his  birth  up  to  asso 
ciating  with  the  best  in  the  land,  Chase  yet  seemed 
throughout  his  life  unable  to  form  warm  friend 
ships  with  other  public  men.  In  the  galaxy  of  the 
great  men  of  the  Civil  War  period,  his  only  inti 
mate  personal  friend  was  Charles  Sumner.  John 
Jay,  of  New  York,  wrote  often,  and  had  a  very 
cordial  interest  and  respect  for  him,  but  they  were 
seldom  thrown  together.  Among  his  associates  in 
the  cabinet  Chase  had  not  one  intimate  friend,  not 
even  Stanton.  In  Congress  Fessenden  of  Maine 
most  nearly  represented  his  views  and  became  his 
worthy  successor,  but  in  the  House  in  the  crisis  of 
the  taxation,  currency,  and  bank  discussions,  the 
only  member  of  large  influence  who  was  personally 
attached  to  him  seems  to  have  been  Ashley,  and 
his  championship  was  at  that  time  of  little  service. 
Among  the  Republican  war  governors,  not  one  was 
an  ardent  supporter  of  Chase  at  any  time,  and 
even  in  the  Supreme  Court  there  appears  to  have 
been  no  one  with  whom  Chase  was  familiar ;  while 
the  coterie  of  leading  Republican  politicians,  Ben 
Wade,  Thaddeus  Stevens,  and  the  rest,  were 
openly  hostile  to  him.  Though  in  abilities  and 
reputation  Chase  surpassed  all  these  men,  his 
warmest  and  most  devoted  political  friends  were 
for  the  most  part  men  who  merged  their  political 
identity  in  his,  and  both  in  1864  and  1868  he 
could  not  stir  the  levers  through  which  public  sen 
timent  works  its  will.  Politically  and  even  so 
cially  he  was  throughout  a  novus  homo.  Notwith- 


THE   MAN  423 

standing  his  excellent  social  and  professional  start 
in  Washington  and  Cincinnati  he  took  a  side  in  the 
anti-slavery  contest  which,  in  the  minds  of  many 
aristocratic  people,  set  him  among  fanatics  and 
persons  of  imperfect  social  instincts.  To  defend 
negroes,  to  appear  before  the  Supreme  Court  as 
their  champion,  to  tell  them  that  they  ought  to 
have  a  ballot,  was  to  create  against  himself  that 
social  prejudice  which  was  felt  in  equal  measure 
by  Charles  Sumner. 

Nor  was  Chase  at  any  time  in  his  life  genuinely 
popular.  He  was  submitted  to  an  election  by  ballot 
but  twice,  in  the  Ohio  campaigns  of  1855  and  1857, 
and  in  the  second  of  these  contests  his  majority 
was  very  narrow.  He  had  a  certain  Roman  aggres 
sive  virtue  about  him,  a  Cato-like  consciousness  of 
uprightness,  which  somehow  vexed  and  repelled 
the  ordinary  voter,  and  was  one  reason  for  his  lack 
of  personal  relations  with  other  public  men.  But 
on  the  other  hand,  he  had  not  the  bonhomie,  the 
power  of  putting  himself  in  relations  with  the 
average  man,  which  carried  a  man  like  Abraham 
Lincoln  beyond  all  questions  of  social  prejudice. 
Chase  was  a  representative  neither  of  the  tradi 
tional  aristocratic  classes  nor  of  the  laborer;  and 
his  splendid  championship  of  the  cause  of  the  negro 
did  little  to  endear  him  to  the  masses,  yet  gave  him 
a  radical  reputation  which  did  not  commend  him  to 
the  leaders. 

Few  men  leave  behind  them  such  minute  memo 
randa  of  their  private  lives  as  those  which  are  open 


424  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

to  the  biographer  of  Chase.  Mr.  Warden  knew 
no  other  use  to  make  of  the  mass  of  his  diaries 
and  correspondence  than  to  print  the  most  private 
and  sacred  passages  with  the  rest.  But  the  char 
acter  of  the  man  stands  both  the  test  of  his  printed 
journals  and  of  his  immense  unpublished  corre 
spondence.  He  was  by  nature  religious,  not  only 
maintaining  the  formal  observances  of  religious 
worship  in  his  family,  but  holding  to  the  faith  of 
the  Christian.  He  was  a  man  of  sobriety  of  char, 
acter,  whose  jokes  were  clumsy,  whose  conversation 
was  almost  painfully  decorous,  and  whose  letters 
even  to  intimates,  were  stately  and  sometimes  ob 
viously  intended  for  posterity.  He  was  a  truthful 
man  from  top  to  toe  ;  perhaps  he  was  over-anxious 
to  defend  himself,  to  deprecate  or  forestall  criti 
cism;  but  deceit  was  not  in  him,  and  his  worst 
enemies  might  accuse  him  of  being  too  blunt,  but 
not  of  an  unworthy  finesse.  In  the  course  of  his 
life  he  knew  much  violent  abuse,  and  was  often 
accused  of  getting  his  senatorship  by  a  political 
job,  but  the  terms  of  the  combination  in  the  Ohio 
legislature  of  1849  were  known  to  everybody  at 
the  time,  and  involved  no  concealment  nor  dis 
honesty. 

Chase  was  a  man  of  varied  interests,  who  always 
had  many  irons  in  the  fire,  and  was  harassed  by 
the  effort  to  keep  them  all  hot;  but  he  was  a 
painstaking  lawyer,  a  careful  and  considerate  sen 
ator,  a  hard-working  secretary,  and  a  thoughtful 
judge.  Perhaps  what  he  most  lacked  was  health- 


THE  MAN  425 

ful  pessimism  ;  he  had  always  too  much  preliminary 
confidence  that  everything  was  to  be  for  the  best, 
and  a  corresponding  sinking  of  heart  when  his 
plans  miscarried.  His  greatest  fault  was  a  life 
long  habit  of  self-introspection,  to  assure  himself 
how  upright  were  his  purposes  ;  but  his  belief  in 
himself  does  not  lessen  the  truth  that  the  roots  of 
his  private  character  were  a  strong  sense  of  duty 
and  a  high  standard  of  conduct. 

While  the  great  variety  of  his  life  experiences 
did  much  to  make  Chase  a  broad  and  far-seeing 
man,  it  is  unfortunate  for  his  reputation  as  a  jurist 
that  he  had  so  short  a  time  of  service  on  the 
bench,  and  allowed  so  much  of  his  energies  during 
that  period  to  go  into  political  and  personal  ques 
tions.  Chase  had  the  foundations  of  great  judicial 
eminence  :  as  a  lawyer  he  was  industrious  and  pains 
taking  ;  his  mind  had  the  habit  of  throwing  aside 
unimportant  things  right  and  left,  so  that  he  might 
get  at  the  essential  questions  ;  he  saw  broad  rela 
tions,  and  at  the  same  time  had  a  power  of  dis 
crimination  which  enabled  him  to  apply  effective 
precedents  and  to  get  rid  of  comparisons  which  were 
not  really  parallel. 

In  judicial  style  Chase  has  little  of  Marshall's 
marvelous  art  of  arrangement,  and  of  luminous, 
unmistakable  statement  of  great  principles  in  a 
literary  form.  His  opinions  lacked  method,  and 
did  not  clearly  reveal  the  progress  of  the  argument 
in  his  own  mind ;  but  his  law  was  safe,  conservative, 
and  respectable,  if  never  brilliant;  and  the  deci- 


426  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

sions  of  the  Supreme  Court  during  his  incumbency 
in  general  show  consistency  and  an  accretion  of 
principles  which  harmonize  with  each  other. 
\J  The  exact  character  of  his  influence  on  the  Su 
preme  Court  is  difficult  to  determine,  and  little 
light  is  thrown  upon  it  by  the  official  tributes  paid 
by  his  colleagues  after  his  death.  The  reorganiza 
tion  of  the  court  from  1865  to  1870  brought  heart 
burnings  and  some  dissensions,  although  the  pub 
lic  saw  little  of  these  troubles  until  the  explosion 
over  the  legal  tender  decisions  ;  and  in  that  crisis 
the  pressure  of  the  majority  was  resisted  by  Chase 
not  very  gracefully  or  graciously.  Indeed,  Chase's 
best  judicial  service  was  given  in  the  four  years 
from  1865  to  1869,  while  he  was  still  in  the  fullness 
of  his  powers,  and  before  the  court  stood  before 
the  country  as  a  divided  and  disagreeing  body. 
Chase's  greatest  opinion  was  that  in  the  Texas  v. 
White  case,  which  shows  such  power  of  compressed 
historical  statement  and  such  application  of  great 
principles  to  the  problems  of  the  Civil  War,  that 
his  admirers  must  wish  that  he  had  lived  to  render 
a  series  of  such  decisions,  for  in  them  he  would 
have  gone  upon  the  roll  of  the  greatest  American 
jurists.  Even  in  his  brief  experience  his  reputa 
tion  remains  that  of  a  sound,  hard-headed,  well- 
informed,  well-trained  jurist.  He  stands  below 
Jay  and  Marshall  and  Story  ;  but  in  general  quali 
ties  and  services  as  a  judge  he  has  an  honorable 
place  among  the  judges  who  have  sat  upon  the 
Supreme  Bench. 


THE  MAN  427 

Into  his  public  life  Chase  carried  the  character 
istics  which  marked  his  private  life :  the  same 
sense  of  duty  and  the  same  optimism,  tempered  in 
later  life  by  his  own  experience,  the  same  restless 
spirit  of  hard  work,  the  same  application  of  a  high 
standard.  He  was  a  great  man,  who  would  have 
left  a  greater  impression  upon  his  contemporaries 
had  he  been  content  to  do  one  piece  of  work  at  a 
time,  and  to  give  to  it  his  whole  mind.  His  con 
ception  of  public  life  was  that  of  public  service ; 
that  he  should  have  handled  hundreds  of  millions 
of  dollars  without  any  part  of  it  sticking  to  his 
fingers  was  hardly  a  subject  for  the  self -congratu 
lation  which  he  bestowed  upon  it ;  but  it  was  an 
achievement  to  administer  the  Treasury  during  the 
Civil  War  without  giving  to  any  of  his  friends  a 
hint  which  would  have  enabled  them  to  make  money 
in  private  speculation.  His  acts  as  a  public  ser 
vant  he  understood  to  be  for  the  public  welfare. 
In  the  midst  of  a  venal  and  corrupt  period,  when 
even  some  of  his  colleagues  were  suspected  of  put 
ting  good  things  in  the  way  of  their  friends,  Chase 
remained  honest.  He  had  an  immense  opportunity 
through  his  control  of  the  border  trade,  and  doubt 
less  permits  to  trade  were  often  issued  to  inferior 
men ;  but  he  intended  that  that  difficult  business 
should  be  honestly  carried  through,  and  was  not 
more  deceived  than  must  have  been  the  case  with 
any  administrator  dealing  with  the  seizure  of  pri 
vate  property  in  the  midst  of  such  turmoil. 

Chase  had  also  the  honesty  of  expressing  unpop- 


428  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

ular  opinions  and  adhering  to  them  when  it  seemed 
likely  to  be  to  his  own  hurt.  A  few  times  in  his 
life  he  shifted  his  beliefs,  once  when  he  went  into 
the  Liberty  party  in  1842,  once  when  he  changed 
ground  on  the  question  of  resisting  secession  by 
force  in  1861,  and  once  011  the  constitutionality  of 
legal  tenders.  But  certainly  the  first  and  the  third 
of  these  changes  were  likely  to  bring  him  nothing 
but  ill-will  and  difficulty.  For  the  great  prize  of 
the  presidency,  which  always  eluded  him,  he  made 
long  and  astute  preparations  beforehand,  but  he 
was  not  at  any  time  willing  to  change  his  opinions 
in  order  to  win  votes,  nor  to  compel  his  subordi 
nate  officials  to  work  for  his  political  advancement. 
As  a  politician  Chase  lacked  conciliation  and 
alertness ;  yet  he  did  first  and  last  win  many  votes 
for  the  measures  and  the  men  whom  he  supported. 
He  was  in  large  degree  an  opportunist.  In  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  where  his  qualities  as  a  man 
were  perhaps  more  clearly  revealed  than  in  any 
other  episode  of  his  life,  he  did  everything  that 
could  be  done  to  modify  the  bill,  except  to  give  up 
the  principles  upon  which  his  objection  was  founded. 
However  strong  his  sense  of  his  own  judgment  he 
was  willing  to  yield  in  details,  and  to  work  with 
other  men.  If  he  yielded  to  Congress  on  $$  legal 
tenders,  Congress  yielded  to  him  on  internal  reve 
nue,  on  methods  of  collection,  and  especially  on 
the  national  bank  system;  and  as  a  constructive 
statesman  Chase  must  ever  stand  among  the  great 
est  Americans. 


THE  MAN  429 

Chase  saw  more  clearly  than  any  other  public 
man  of  his  time,  except  Lincoln,  the  importance, 
the  necessity,  and  the  moral  effect  of  sticking  to  a 
consistent  principle.  He  entered  public  life  as  an 
anti-slavery  man,  and  nothing  ever  drew  him  aside 
from  what  he  conceived  to  be  the  right  of  the  bond 
man,  and  the  parallel  right  of  the  community  to 
be  freed  from  bondage.  In  this  respect  he  stood 
far  above  William  H.  Seward,  a  man  whose  career 
was  in  many  respects  like  his  own.  In  the  dark 
months  of  1860  and  1861,  both  men  were  inclined 
to  give  up  the  strenuous  opposition  to  secession,  — 
Seward,  because  he  believed  the  Southern  States 
were  not  in  earnest ;  and  Chase,  because  he  could 
not  at  once  see  that  the  future  freedom  of  the  con 
tinent  depended  upon  striking  at  the  Confederacy 
before  it  was  completed.  The  national  banking 
system  was  Chase's  creation,  and  from  1861  to 
1864  he  thought  of  it  continuously,  losing  no  op 
portunity  of  showing  how  much  it  was  needed  ; 
and  eventually  his  principles  triumphed.  Begin 
ning  with  the  conviction  that  the  self-control  of  the 
States  in  their  own  concerns  was  necessary  for  free 
dom  in  the  North,  Chase  never  divested  himself  of 
the  belief  that  it  was  best  to  leave  even  the  South 
ern  States  after  reorganization  to  manage  their  own 
affairs  ;  and  at  his  death  he  stood  on  the  great  ques 
tion  of  state  rights  about  where  he  had  stood  thirty 
years  earlier.  Other  men  of  his  time  had  changed 
their  minds,  and  Chase  was  not  the  man  to  be  bound 
forever  by  a  partial  conception  arrived  at  early 


430  SALMON  PORTLAND   CHASE 

in  life  ;  his  view  was  simply  that  it  lay  in  the  na 
ture  of  man  to  misuse  the  powers  of  government 
if  too  much  were  assembled  in  the  national  part  of 
the  American  system. 

Why  is  it  that  a  man  so  large,  so  farsighted,  so 
upright,  whose  principles  were  so  excellent,  should 
have  failed  to  leave  an  impression  of  superem- 
inence  ?  One  reason  is  that  the  times  were  not  so 
favorable  for  the  reputation  of  a  civilian  as  of  a 
military  man ;  but  a  still  stronger  reason  is  that 
Lincoln,  in  the  public  mind,  so  overtopped  all 
other  statesmen.  There  were  plenty  of  striking 
civilians  during  the  Civil  War,  and  Chase  came 
into  relations  with  most  of  them ;  but  their  repu 
tations  are  all  stunted  by  the  greatness  of  that 
most  overpowering  personality.  Charles  Francis 
Adams,  Stanton,  Seward,  Sumner,  and  Thaddeus 
Stevens,  would  all  have  shone  more  brightly  in 
earlier  or  later  times.  They  are  the  men  with 
whom  Chase  is  to  be  compared;  and  not  one  of 
them  has  such  claims  to  our  admiration  as  he. 
A  fierce  and  implacable  radical  in  his  younger 
days,  Chase  came  to  have  a  spirit  of  moderation, 
and  a  conception  that  there  was  possibly  another 
side  to  the  controversy,  which  could  never  enter 
into  the  minds  of  Sumner  and  Stevens.  In  breadth 
of  view  and  insight  into  the  conditions  of  the 

O 

country  he  certainly  surpassed  Adams  ;  in  balance 
and  in  power  of  working  with  other  men  as  in 
strumentalities  Stanton  was  far  his  inferior ;  and 
the  whole  course  of  the  Civil  War  and  Recon- 


THE   MAN  431 

struction  showed  that  lie  had  in  his  mind  a  basis  of 
solid  conviction  which  was  lacking  in  the  fiery, 
more  astute,  and  genial  Seward. 

The  truth  of  this  statement  does  not  take  away 
the  fact  that  in  his  own  lifetime  Chase  had  fewer 
warm  friends  and  admirers  than  almost  any  one 
of  these  rivals,  and  that  somehow  he  repeatedly 
gave  an  impression  of  smallness  in  small  matters, 
which  dimmed  his  reputation.  This  came  first  of 
all  from  his  measuring  himself  with  Lincoln,  and  in 
that  unhappy  difference  he  did  not  show  a  great 
man's  appreciation  of  another  great  man's  character 
and  personality.  Little  men,  buzzing  newspaper 
correspondents,  disappointed  candidates  for  office, 
and  unsuccessful  generals,  might  have  been  expected 
to  carp  at  Lincoln's  oddities  of  manner  and  slowness 
in  making  up  his  mind,  but  it  was  reasonable  to 
expect  a  broader  view  and  a  loyal  sympathy  from 
a  man  like  Chase,  so  closely  associated  with  the 
President,  so  cognizant  of  the  tremendous  econo 
mic  and  political  difficulties  which  beset  him. 

It  is  not  a  defense  to  say  that  for  some  years 
Chase  thought  that  his  own  experience  and  long 
service  as  an  anti-slavery  man  gave  him  a  deeper 
insight  than  Lincoln  possessed.  In  the  crisis  of 
1862  and  the  supreme  effort  of  1864  he  ought  to 
have  taken  his  place  as  Lincoln's  strongest  and 
most  generous  supporter.  That  he  did  not  is  due 
to  two  defects  in  his  make-up  :  he  lacked  a  sense 
of  proportion  and  he  lacked  imagination.  It  was 
not  in  him  to  see  that  in  1864  the  question  was 


432  SALMON   PORTLAND   CHASE 

not  of  military  success,  nor  of  putting  at  the  head 
of  affairs  a  man  of  great  intelligence  and  good 
judgment,  — that  is,  Chase  himself,  —  but  in  unit 
ing  the  country  in  its  final,  desperate  effort  under 
the  headship  of  the  one  man  who  by  that  time 
could  unite  the  country.  Again,  Chase's  lack  of 
humor  put  him  out  of  relations  with  the  President. 
They  never  understood  each  other  ;  Seward,  though 
far  inferior  to  Chase  in  the  conduct  of  his  own  pub 
lic  business,  and  though  a  much  weaker  element  in 
the  relations  of  the  administration  to  the  country, 
could  obliterate  himself  and  be  content  to  be  a  lieu 
tenant  of  the  greater  man  ;  but  Chase  in  his  whole 
life  could  not  learn  the  lesson  of  subordination. 
He  never  looked  upon  himself  as  under  the  direc 
tions  of  the  President ;  he  always  considered  Lin 
coln  to  be  only  a  primus  inter  pares,  and  his  con 
ception  of  the  Lincoln  administration  was  that  it 
ought  to  be  a  collegiate  body  in  which  the  strong 
intellects  were  to  shape  a  majority.  Had  Chase 
shown  towards  Lincoln  the  kind  of  patriotic 
fidelity  which  General  Sherman  showed  towards 
Grant,  his  name  might  have  gone  down  linked 
indissolubly  with  that  of  the  greatest  American, 
instead  of  standing  as  a  representative  of  discon 
tent  and  protest  against  his  president  and  his 
chief. 

Another  reason  for  the  disappointment  which 
Americans  have  felt  not  only  in  Chase,  but  in  all 
the  leaders  of  the  Civil  War,  both  civil  and  mili 
tary,  is  that  we  no  longer  realize  the  tremendous 


THE  MAN  433 

task  which  settled  down  upon  them.  Lincoln 
was  wise  enough  to  write :  "I  have  made  mis 
takes  ;  "  and  yet  we  feel  impatience  with  the  unsuc 
cessful  generals  and  the  imperfect  statesmen.  This 
generation  measures  the  last  by  results  which 
the  wisest  throughout  the  world  did  not  in  that 
day  foresee.  It  seemed  simply  common  sense  for 
foreign  observers  in  1861  to  predict  that  the  Union 
would  be  permanently  divided  by  secession  ;  no 
American,  North  or  South,  was  justified  in  con 
fidence  that  the  North  could  be  united  for  a  single 
year's  campaign,  until  the  firing  upon  Fort  Sumter 
raised  a  storm  of  wrath  and  resistance ;  and  even 
then  a  large  minority  in  the  North  was  opposed  to 
the  war,  and  a  small  minority  ventured  to  express 
its  dissent.  Is  it  reasonable  to  hold  Chase  and 
Seward  and  Stanton,  Grant,  Halleck,  and  Buell, 
Adams  and  Sumner,  responsible  because  they  could 
not  look  forward  even  half  a  year  into  the  future  ? 
A  Napoleon  could  have  broken  up  the  Southern 
confederacy  in  three  months,  but  he  could  not  have 
organized  the  moral  forces  of  the  Union  to  remove 
the  causes  of  secession  and  restore  mutual  respect. 
Whatever  the  defects  of  the  American  public 
system,  it  did  bring  to  the  front  in  the  great  crisis 
of  the  slavery  conflict  those  Americans  who  were 
best  able  to  understand  both  their  own  country 
men  and  the  problems  which  had  to  be  solved. 
So  far  as  they  failed,  there  were  no  others  who 
could  have  better  succeeded. 

"  There  is  a  glory  of  the  sun,  and  a  glory  of  the 


434  SALMON  PORTLAND  CHASE 

moon,  and  a  glory  of  the  stars,  and  one  star  differ- 
eth  from  another  in  glory."  Let  not  Lincoln's  sur 
passing  power  to  gather  within  his  own  mind  the 
means  and  hopes  and  purposes  of  the  American 
people  dim  our  admiration  for  the  men  who  sur 
rounded  him  !  Of  these  men  there  may  have  been 
abler  statesmen  than  Chase,  and  there  certainly 
were  more  agreeable  companions,  but  none  of 
them  contributed  so  much  to  the  stock  of  Ameri 
can  political  ideas  as  he,  both  'before,  during,  and 
after  the  Civil  War.  At  first  an  obscure  member 
of  a  little  group  of  anti-slavery  politicians,  he  came 
to  something  like  headship  of  that  party  in  the 
campaign  of  1848.  He  was  the  first  efficient  anti- 
slavery  senator,  and  in  his  management  of  the 
opposition  to  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  showed 
great  qualities  as  a  parliamentary  leader.  He 
came  forward  as  secretary  of  the  treasury  in  the 
midst  of  chaos,  and  made  suggestions  and  de 
veloped  financial  ideas  which  may  have  been  im 
perfect,  but  which  were  so  clear  and  definite  that 
Congress  was  compelled  to  adopt  most  of  them. 
Almost  single-handed  he  began  the  attack  upon 
the  sixteen  hundred  state  banks  which  were  the 
entrenched  fortresses  of  a  vicious  system,  and  com 
pelled  both  bankers  and  congressmen  to  accept  a 
better  scheme.  More  than  any  other  man  he  seized 
upon  the  conditions  of  the  Civil  War  as  leading 
straight  to  the  legal  and  political  freedom  of  the 
negro,  and  to  him  more  than  to  any  one  else  is 
due  that  system  of  negro  suffrage  which  he  ad- 


THE  MAN  435 

vocated,  not  because  he  thought  it  was  ideal,  but 
because  he  saw  no  halfway  place  in  giving  to  the 
negro  his  long-usurped  rights.  In  his  latest  years 
he  well  used  his  opportunity  to  stand  for  the  prin 
ciple  of  limited  powers,  as  against  the  conception 
of  a  sovereign  legislature,  both  in  the  States  and 
the  Union. 

Chase  could  never  have  been  a  father  of  his 
country ;  he  was  rather  one  of  those  elder  brethren 
who  freely  suggest,  criticise,  and  complain,  and 
who  by  the  rectitude  of  their  own  lives,  and  by 
their  upholding  of  high  standards,  influence  the 
children  as  they  grow  up.  No  man  of  his  time 
had  a  stronger  conception  of  the  moral  issues  in 
volved  in  the  Civil  War ;  none  showed  greater 
courage  and  resolution  ;  none  came  nearer  to  doing 
the  thing  for  which  he  existed.  The  underlying 
idea  of  his  public  life  was  to  bring  the  law  up  to 
the  moral  standards  of  the  country,  and  to  make 
both  moral  standards  and  law  apply  to  black  men 
as  well  as  to  white  men.  He  had  ambitions  which 
sometimes  dimmed  his  understanding  and  led  him 
into  injustice,  but  his  life  was  sincerely  given  to 
the  service  of  his  country.  Lincoln  was  a  keen 
knower  of  men,  and  nobody  had  better  oppor 
tunity  to  observe  Chase's  deficiencies  ;  and  Lin 
coln  said  of  him  :  "  Chase  is  about  one  and  a 
half  times  bigger  than  any  other  man  that  I  ever 
knew." 


436 


APPENDIX   A 

SUMMARY  OF  THE  NATIONAL 


1860-61 

1861-62 

REVENUES. 

39  582  000 

49  056  000 

Direct  Tax  

1,795,000 

Internal  Revenue  

Miscellaneous  .     .     .     .     . 
Public  Land      

892,000 
871,000 

932,000 
152,000 

Total                             .     . 

41  345  000 

51,935  000 

PAYMENTS. 
Ordinary  civil  expenses       .     . 

26,947,000 
22  981  000 

24,511,000 
394  368  000 

Navy  

12,429,000 

42,675,000 

Interest  on  debt  

4,000,000 

13,190,000 

Total 

66  357  000 

474  744  000 

DEBT  OUTSTANDING. 
Funded  Loans  6  per  cent   .     . 
Funded  Loans  5  per  cent   . 
7-3/10  per  cent  Notes    .     .     . 
Treasury  Notes     .     . 

June  30,  1861 

39,773,000 
30,483,000 

20  611  000 

June  30,  1862 

100,754,000 
30,483,000 
122,837,000 
2  849  000 

Demand  Notes 

53  040  000 

96  620  000 

Temporary  Deposits  .... 
Certificates  of  Indebtedness    . 
Fractional  and  Postal  Currency 

57,746,000 
49,882,000 

Total    

90,867,000 

514  211  000 

The  figures  are  in  every  case  the  nearest  thousand  to  the  full  figures ;  hence 
the  totals  do  not  always  tally  exactly  with  the  items. 


APPENDIX   A 
FINANCES,   BY  FISCAL  YEARS,   1860-1866 


437 


1862-63 

1863-64 

1864-65 

1865-66 

69,050,000 
1,485,000 
37,185,000 
456,000 
3,047,000 
167,000 

102,316,000 
475,000 
94,822,000 
14,919,000 
47,511,000 
588,000 

84,928,000 
1,201,000 
188,897,000 
20,567,000 
32,978,000 
997,000 

179,047,000 
1,975,000 
248,333,000 
60,894,000 
67,119,000 
665,000 

111,399,000 

260,633,000 

329,568,000 

558,033,000 

27,470,000 
599,299,000 
63,211,000 
24,730,000 

35,024,000 
690,792,000 
85,733,000 
53,685,000 

59,024,000 
1,031,323,000 
122,568,000 
77,398,000 

59,909,000 
284,450,000 
43,324,000 
133,068,000 

714,710,000 

865,234,000 

1,290,313,000 

520,751,000 

June  30,  1863 
257,085,000 
30,483,000 
139,971,000 
895,000 
3,351.000 
387,644,000 
162,385,000 
156,784,000 
20,192,000 

June  30,  1864 
672,162,000 
102,509,000 
109,356,000 
168,750,000 
781,000 
431,179,000 
72,330,000 
160,729,000 
22,895,000 

June  30,  1865 

771,324,000 
200,634,000 
810,766,000 
236,213,000 
473,000 
432,687,000 
89,717,000 
115,772,000 
25,006,000 

June  30,  1866 
891,246,000 
198,800,000 
945,553,000 
162,584,000 
272,000 
400,619,000 
120,176,000 
26,391,000 
27,071,000 

1,098,790,000 

1,740,691,000 

2,682,592,000 

2,772,712,000 

The  footing  for  June  30,  1866,  is  about  11   millions  less  than  the  official 
total,  because  the  gold  certificates  were  not  included  here. 


438 


APPENDIX  B 


BANKS  AND  CURRENCY,    1860-1866 


INDEX 


INDEX 


ABOLITIONISTS,  begin  as  followers  of 
Garrison,  36;  different  groups  of, 
36,  37  ;  obliged  to  struggle  for  free 
speech,  38  ;  the  name  disavowed  by 
Chase,  54,  55  ;  denounce  Chase,  55 ; 
Western  ones  less  extreme  than  Gar- 
risonians,  56,  57  ;  Garrisonian  wing 
advises  non-resistance,  85  ;  Western 
wing  practices  political  action,  85 ; 
cease  to  influence  the  country  after 
1841, 103  ;  what  they  did  effect,  103  ; 
welcome  secession,  199. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  compared 
with  Chase,  430. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  his  last  recep 
tion  as  President  described  by  Chase, 
8  ;  visited  by  Birney  in  1837,  52  ;  re 
fuses  to  be  called  an  abolitionist,  55, 
92 ;  plan  for  his  nomination  op 
posed  by  Birney,  92  ;  his  suggestion 
as  to  power  to  abolish  slavery  re 
vived  in  1861,  255. 

Aldam,  W.,  Jr.,  corresponds  with 
Chase  on  slavery,  83. 

Allen,  Charles,  in  House  in  1849,  114. 

Allen,  William,  Democratic  senator 
from  Ohio,  104. 

Anderson,  Major  Robert,  in  command 
at  Fort  Sumter,  208. 

Anderson,  ,  in  fugitive  slave 

case,  168. 

Anti-slavery  movement  in  1775-1830, 
34  ;  early  societies  for,  35. 

Ashley,  James  M.,  political  lieutenant 
of  Chase,  159  ;  on  corruption  in  Ohio 
Republican  officeholders,  161 ;  pro 
poses  Lincoln  in  1860  to  counteract 
Bates,  182 ;  urges  impeachment  of 
Johnson,  358 ;  unable  to  aid  Chase 
during  war,  422. 

BAILEY,  GAMALIEL,  friend  of  Chase, 
aids  Lane  Seminary  seceders,  40  ; 


typical  Western  abolitionist,  57; 
edits  the  "National  Era,"  61;  on 
possible  Republican  candidates  in 
1856,  160. 

Ball,  Flamen,  law  partner  of  Chase, 
23,  26 ;  given  an  office  by  Chase, 
219. 

Banks,  N.  P.,  candidate  for  Republi 
can  nomination  in  1856,  160  ;  again 
in  1860,  181  ;  attempts  of  Chase  to 
placate,  187  ;  discourages  enlistment 
of  negroes,  272 ;  corresponds  with 
Chase,  295. 

Bannister,  Dwight,  on  Chase's  reasons 
for  resigning  from  Lincoln's  cabi 
net,  302  ;  his  devotion  to  Chase, 
421. 

Barnburners,  bolt  Democratic  ticket, 
96  ;  their  action  at  the  Buffalo  con 
vention,  100. 

Barney,  Hiram,  political  lieutenant  of 
Chase  in  New  York,  160  ;  tries  to 
win  over  Lincoln,  188 ;  abandons 
Chase  for  Lincoln,  193;  appointed 
collector  of  port  of  New  York,  217, 
218  ;  his  enemies,  311 ;  his  removal 
pressed  by  Lincoln,  315  ;  reports  to 
Chase  the  demand  for  registerships 
in  bankruptcy,  323. 

Bartlett, ,  editor  of  "  Cincinnati 

Gazette,"  corresponds  with  Chase, 
62. 

Bates,  Edward,  candidate  for  Re 
publican  nomination  in  1860,  182 ; 
reasons  for  his  availability,  183; 
his  candidacy  dreaded  by  Chase, 
187  ;  in  Lincoln's  cabinet,  212 ;  de 
mands  opening  of  Mississippi  to 
trade,  228 ;  gives  opinion  in  favor 
of  constitutionality  of  legal  tender, 
247. 

Beecher,  Lyman,  president  of  Lane 
Seminary,  39,  40. 


442 


INDEX 


Benham,  Henry,  corresponds  with 
Chase,  214. 

Benton,  Thomas  H.,  opposes  Nebraska 
bill,  138. 

Bigelow,  John,  editor  of  "  Evening 
Post,"  corresponds  with  Chase,  62. 

Birney,  James  G.,  becomes  an  aboli 
tionist,  44  ;  establishes  "  Philan 
thropist,"  44,  45  ;  mobbed  in  Cincin 
nati,  45,  49  ;  protected  by  Chase, 
50;  his  influence  upon  Chase's  views, 
51 ;  furnishes  Chase  with  arguments 
in  Matilda  case,  51,  52  ;  urges  Chase 
to  oppose  annexation  of  Texas,  52 ; 
agrees  politically  with  Chase,  57 ; 
suggests  practicable  methods  of  at 
tacking  slavery,  G6 ;  aids  fugitive 
slave  Matilda,  73  ;  indicted,  and  de 
fended  by  Chase,  74  ;  leaves  Cincin 
nati,  84 ;  suggests  an  anti-slavery 
political  party,  85  ;  nominated  for 
President,  86  ;  draws  a  slight  vote, 
87  ;  protests  to  Chase  against  nomi 
nating  Seward  or  Adams,  92  ;  re- 
nominated  for  President,  92 ;  re 
ceives  a  small  vote,  93  ;  retires  from 
public  life,  95. 

Birney,  William,  on  Birney's  conver 
sion  of  Chase  to  anti-slavery  princi 
ples,  51. 

Black,  Jeremiah  S.,  Attorney-General, 
agrees  to  abandon  Oberlin  rescue 
suits,  170. 

Blair,  Frank  P.,  proposes  Fremont  for 
candidate  in  1856,  160;  proposes 
Bates  in  1860,  182 ;  attacks  Chase  in 
Congress,  313. 

Blair,  Montgomery,  urges  the  relief  of 
Sumter,  209,  210  ;  represents  border 
States  in  cabinet,  254 ;  wishes  to 
file  protest  against  emancipation 
proclamation,  yet  favors  emancipa 
tion  in  theory,  269 ;  candidate  for 
chief  justiceship,  320. 

Booth,  Walter,  in  House  in  1849,  114. 

Border  States,  support  Union,  254 ;  not 
affected  by  emancipation  proclama 
tion,  270. 

Boutwell,  George  S.,  Secretary  of 
Treasury,  392 ;  accused  of  conspir 
ing  to  pack  the  Supreme  Court,  399. 

Bradley,  Joseph  P.,  dissents  in  Slaugh 
ter-house  Cases,  381 ;  question  of  his 


having  been  nominated  to  pack  the 
Supreme  Court,  400;  urges  reopening 
of  legal  tender  cases,  402  ;  his  opin 
ion  in  Hepburn  and  Griswold  case, 
406,  410. 

Briggs,  James  H.,  works  for  Chase's 
nomination  in  1860,  180  ;  describes 
efforts  in  Chase's  behalf  to  win  over 
Lincoln,  187,  188. 

Brinckerhoff,  Jacob,  tells  Chase  of  the 
hostility  toward  him  of  Ohio  Whigs, 
194. 

Brooks,  Judge,  holds  federal  court  in 
Virginia,  343. 

Brown,  John,  asks  Chase  for  money, 
174,  175. 

Buchanan,  James,  elected  President  in 
1856,  161 ;  agrees  with  Chase  to  com 
promise  Anderson  fugitive  case,  168; 
comments  on  defeat  of  Democrats 
in  Pennsylvania,  178 ;  his  policy 
during  secession  movement,  198. 

Buffalo  Free  Soil  convention,  call  for, 
97;  election  of  delegates  to,  98; 
organization  of,  99 ;  its  character, 
enthusiasm,  and  determination,  99- 
101 ;  deal  in,  between  Barnburners 
and  anti-slavery  men,  100,  101  ;  in 
fluence  of  Chase  in,  101. 

Burnet,  Jacob,  advises  Chase  to  settle 
in  Cincinnati,  13  ;  on  committee  to 
advise  Birney  to  abandon  his  paper, 
45. 

Bushnell,  Horace,  at  founding  of  Ohio 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  44. 

Busteed,  Richard,  holds  federal  court 
in  Alabama,  343. 

Butler,  Andrew  P.,  attacks  Chase  in 
Senate,  123. 

Butler,  Benjamin  F.,  presents  Van 
Buren's  name  to  Buffalo  convention, 
100. 

Butler,  General  Benjamin  F.,  permits 
trade  in  cotton  at  New  Orleans,  227; 
his  corrupt  reasons,  228 ;  his  "  con 
traband  "  theory  supported  by 
Chase,  257  ;  enlists  negroes,  272  ; 
corresponds  with  Chase,  295. 

CALHOCN, JOHN  C.,  Chase's  opinion  of, 
in  1829,  10  ;  calls  slavery  a  positive 
good,  122. 

California  formed  as  a  State,  120  ;  its 


INDEX 


443 


admission  demanded  by  Chase, 
126. 

Cameron,  Simon,  influences  Republi 
can  party  policy  more  than  Chase, 
177 ;  candidate  for  nomination  in 
1860,  181  ;  his  candidacy  not  re 
garded  seriously,  187, 188;  his  friends 
try  to  exclude  Chase  from  Treasury, 
205  ;  on  good  terms  with  Chase,  212, 
301. 

Campbell,  John  A.,  resigns  from  Su 
preme  Court,  324 ;  his  argument  in 
Slaughter-house  Cases,  382. 

Campbell,  Lewis  D.,  his  career  in  Con 
gress,  156. 

Campbell,  R. ,  describes  Weed's 

corrupt  politics,  185-187. 

Canada,  the  refuge  of  negro  fugitives, 
.31- 

Carlisle,  J.  M.,  counsel  in  Latham's 
case,  403. 

Carrington,  H.  B.,  corresponds  with 
Chase,  214. 

Cartter,  D.  K.,  political  lieutenant  of 
Wade  in  Ohio,  189. 

Cartwright,  Peter,  4. 

Cass,  Lewis,  his  nomination  causes 
Barnburners'  bolt  in  1848,  96 ;  his 
vote,  102;  votes  against  excluding 
slavery  from  Territories,  129  ;  disap 
proves  agitation,  but  supports  Ne 
braska  Bill,  137  ;  his  friendly  feel 
ings  for  Chase,  168 ;  arranges  a  com 
promise  in  Anderson  fugitive  slave 
case,  168. 

Caswell,  D.  J.,  law  partner  of  Chase, 
22. 

Catron,  John,  his  death,  325. 

Channing,  William  E.,  his  conference 
with  Birney  in  1837,  52. 

Chase,  Dudley,  uncle  of  S.  P.  Chase, 

2  ;  advises  him  not  to  enter  a  gov 
ernment  clerkship,  6  ;  brings  Chase 
into  Washington  society,  7. 

Chase,  Ithamar,  father  of  S.  P.  Chase, 

2,3. 
Chase,  Philander,  uncle  of  S.  P.  Chase, 

3  ;  takes  Chase  to  Ohio,  3;  his  career 
as  bishop,  4  ;  president  of  Cincinnati 
College,  4  ;  gives  Chase  letters  of  in 
troduction  in  Washington,  6. 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  his  varied  career,  1, 
2 ;  birthplace,  2,  3;  early  schooling, 


3 ;  life  in  Ohio  with  Bishop  Chase,  3, 
4  ;  returns  to  New  Hampshire,  4 ; 
studies  in  Dartmouth  College,  5; 
teaches  school  in  Washington,  6  ;  his 
social  life  in  Wirt's  family,  6-8  ;  his 
esteem  for  Wirt,  7  ;  describes  draw 
ing-room  in  Adams's  administration, 
8  ;  sees  inauguration  of  Jackson,  9  ; 
comments  on  Jackson,  9  ;  on  Van 
Buren's  responsibility  for  the  spoils 
system,  9 ;  on  Randolph,  Calhoun, 
and  Webster,  10  ;  gains  social 
breadth,  11  ;  studies  law  under 
Wirt,  11 ;  admitted  to  the  bar,  12  ; 
his  attainments  at  this  stage,  12  ; 
has  low  estimate  of  himself,  12. 

Lawyer  in  Ohio.  Contrary  to  ad 
vice,  goes  to  Cincinnati  to  begin 
practice,  13  ;  enters  best  local  soci 
ety,  16 ;  gains  practice  slowly,  16, 
17  ;  his  reading  habits,  17  ;  aids  in 
founding  Lyceum,  17  ;  writes  period 
ical  articles,  17,  18  ;  plans  a  Quar 
terly  Review,  18 ;  compiles  an  edi 
tion  of  Ohio  laws,  18,  19  ;  his 
opinions  on  the  ordinance  of  1787, 
19,  20 ;  his  first  marriage,  20  ;  his 
second  marriage,  21 ;  his  third  mar 
riage,  21,  22  ;  gains  professional  rep 
utation,  22;  his  standing  as  a  lawyer, 
22,  23  ;  membership  in  various  law 
firms,  23,  24  ;  his  influence  over  his 
law  students,  24-26  ;  exacts  support 
from  them,  25  ;  not  involved  in  many 
great  cases,  26 ;  loses  connection 
with  Bank  of  United  States,  26  ;  his 
debts  and  financial  expedients,  27. 

Anti  -  slavery  Leader  in  Ohio. 
Friendship  with  Dr.  Bailey,  40 ; 
drafts  an  anti-slavery  petition  in 
1828  for  some  Quakers,  46,  47  ;  oc 
casionally  shows  dislike  for  slavery, 
47  ;  does  not  notice  early  abolition 
ist  movements  in  Cincinnati,  48  ;  his 
account  of  his  intervention  in  behalf 
of  Birney  in  1836,  48-51  ;  becomes 
an  opponent  of  slavery,  50,  51  ;  pro 
bably  converted  by  Birney,  51,  52  ; 
religious  basis  for  his  course,  52,  53  ; 
declines  to  be  called  an  "  abolition 
ist,"  54  ;  denounces  Garrison's 
views,  54,  55 ;  difference  between 
his  opinions  and  Garrison's,  55,  56 ; 


444 


INDEX 


loses  popularity  in  Cincinnati,  57  ; 
gains  a  greater  general  reputation, 
67,  58  ;  speaks  at  anti-slavery  meet 
ings,  58 ;  his  characteristics  as  a 
speaker,  58,  59  ;  successful  in  writ 
ing  addresses  and  resolutions,  59-61 ; 
aids  local  Liberty  papers,  61  ;  corre 
sponds  with  leading  editors,  62  ;  be 
comes  leader  of  cause  in  Ohio,  62, 
63  ;  his  constitutional  argument 
against  slavery,  66-70  ;  deduces  anti- 
slavery  argument  from  Jeffersonian 
democracy,  67,  68  ;  fallacies  in  his 
historical  argument,  69  ;  his  dubious 
position  on  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia,  70  ;  his  constitutional  ar 
gument  against  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Act,  71 ;  seldom  enlarges  on  wrongs 
of  slavery,  72 ;  his  career  as  defender 
of  fugitive  slaves,  73-82  ;  in  Matilda 
case,  73,  74  ;  in  Van  Zandt  case,  75- 
80  ;  his  theory  of  the  Ordinance  of 
1787,  77,  78  ;  denounces  Act  of  1793, 

78,  79  ;  significance  of  his  argument, 

79,  80  ;  in  Watson  case,  80  ;  in  Par 
ish  case,  80,  81  ;  appealed  to  on  be 
half  of  slaves,  81,  82  ;  given  a  silver 
pitcher    by    free  negroes,   82  ;   ap 
proves  negro  suffrage,   83 ;    called 
upon  for  advice  from  all  quarters, 
83,  84 ;   leads  lonely  life  in  Cincin 
nati,  84. 

Organizer  of  Liberty  and  Free-Soil 
Parties.  A  National  Republican  in 
1832,  86  ;  votes  for  Harrison  in  1836, 
86 ;  and  in  1840,  87  ;  joins  Liberty 
party  in  1841,  87 ;  discussion  of 
reasons  for  his  change,  87-90  ;  va 
rious  accounts  of  his  dissatisfaction 
with  Harrison,  87,  88 ;  real  rea 
sons  for  his  abandonment  of  Whig 
party,  89, 90  ;  after  1840  never  trusts 
Whigs,  90  ;  his  services  in  the  Ohio 
Liberty  party,  91,  92;  disapproves 
Liberty  platform  of  1843,  92  ;  con 
siders  Liberty  party  a  failure  and 
looks  to  the  Democratic  party,  94  ; 
discusses  possible  candidates  in 
1847,  95;  urges  postponement  of 
Liberty  nomination,  95 ;  declines 
nomination  fop  Vice-President,  96  ; 
issues  call  for  Free  Territory  con 
vention,  96 ;  urges  Hale  to  withdraw, 


96 ;  engineers  proceedings  of  the 
Free  Territory  convention,  97  ;  looks 
upon  Barnburners'  movement  as 
likely  to  purify  the  Democratic 
party,  97 ;  his  influence  before  the 
Buffalo  convention,  98 ;  favors  Mc 
Lean  for  nominee,  98;  presides 
over  committee  of  conferrees  at 
Buffalo,  100  ;  drafts  resolutions,  101; 
agrees  with  Barnburners  to  secure 
Van  Buren's  nomination,  101,  102  ; 
in  campaign  of  1848,  102. 
United  States  Senator.  Expects 
Free-Soilers  to  force  Democrats  to 
join  them,  104  ;  describes  his  part  in 
the  Ohio  legislative  contest  of  1848- 
49,  106-109;  accuses  Whig  Free- 
Soilers  of  bad  faith,  109  ;  exonerates 
Giddings,  109  ;  accused  of  having 
entered  Senate  by  a  corrupt  bargain* 

109  ;  practically  secures  his  election 
by  aiding  Democrats  in  Hamilton 
County  question,  109  ;  honest  in  his 
position    favoring    the  Democrats, 

110  ;  arranges  repeal  of  Black  Laws 
and  drafts  bill,  110  ;  approves  a  di 
vision  of   offices  with    Democrats, 

111  ;  asserts  his  entire  freedom  from 
bargains  or  pledges,  112  ;  his  view  of 
his  position  on  entering  Senate,  112 ; 
his  first  attack  on  slavery,  113 ;  his 
opinions  of  Seward  and  Hale,  113  ; 
his  other  Free-Soil  colleagues,  113, 
114 ;  excluded  by  South  from  com 
mittees,  114  ;  later,  gains  consider 
ation,    115  ;     considers    himself    a 
Democrat,  115  ;  does  not  fear  disrup 
tion  of  the  party,  115,  116  ;  his  gen 
eral  conduct  as  senator,  116 ;  urges 
improvements  in  Ohio,  116  ;   urges 
homestead  system,  117  ;  disapproves 
excessive  grants  to  railroads,  117  ; 
attitude   on   Pacific  railroads,  118 ; 
opposes    extravagance    in     paying 
claims,   118 ;   opposes  new   federal 
buildings    and   increased     salaries, 
119  ;   reserves  strength  for  slavery 
struggle,  119  ;  his  early  speeches  in 
1850,  123  ;   avoids  controversy  with 
Butler,    123 ;     prepares    to    attack 
Clay's  compromise,   124  ;   on  Web 
ster's  7th  of  March  speech,  124  ;  his 
relations    with    Seward,    125 ;     his 


INDEX 


445 


speech  on  the  compromise,  125-128; 
defies  the  South  to  dissolve  the 
Union,  128  ;  defeated  on  motion  to 
exclude  slavery  from  Territories, 
129  ;  refuses  to  accept  the  compro 
mise,  129,  130;  on  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law,  130 ;  denounced  by  Doug 
las,  131 ;  attempts  to  build  up  "  Free 
Democracy,"  131  ;  supports  Demo 
cratic  ticket  in  Ohio  against  Free- 
Soilers,  131 ;  rejoins  Free-Soil  party 
in  1852,  132  ;  not  reflected  to  Sen 
ate,  133  ;  does  not  expect  revival  of 
slavery  struggle,  133 ;  his  part  in 
the  Kansas-Nebraska  debate,  134  ; 
his  early  opinion  of  the  chances  of 
passing  the  bill,  137,  138  ;  drafts 
"  appeal  of  the  Independent  Demo 
crats,"  138-141;  accuses  Douglas 
of  a  trick,  141 ;  called  a  liar  by 
Douglas,  142  ;  his  reply,  143 ;  pro 
poses  amendment  to  permit  a  legis 
lature  to  prohibit  slavery,  144  ;  out 
done  in  debate  by  Douglas,  145  ;  his 
last  speech  on  the  bill,  146,  147  ; 
predicts  a  disruption  of  parties,  147  ; 
summary  of  his  career  in  the  Sen 
ate,  148. 

Governor  of  Ohio.  Plans  to  organ 
ize  a  new  party  in  Ohio,  151 ;  con 
tinues  to  expect  a  new  Democratic 
party,  151  ;  considers  Anti-Nebraska 
movement  a  coalition,  152 ;  from 
beginning  opposes  Know-Nothings, 
153  ;  nominated  by  Republicans  for 
governor  of  Ohio,  154  ;  attempts  to 
get  him  to  trim,  154;  his  share  in 
campaign,  155 ;  elected  by  a  close 
vote,  155  ;  not  the  man  to  make  a 
popular  governor,  157;  his  state 
ment  of  his  own  services,  157,  158  ; 
reforms  militia  service,  158 ;  urges 
state  improvements,  158  ;  his  presi 
dential  aspirations,  159  ;  handi 
capped  by  lack  of  political  lieuten 
ants,  159 ;  lacks  personal  friends, 
160 ;  his  efforts  to  secure  nomina 
tion,  160,  161  ;  his  name  withdrawn 
by  Hoadly,  161  ;  his  connection 
with  Gibson's  defalcation,  161,  162  ; 
nominated  and  elected  governor  in 
1857,  162  ;  acknowledged  leader  of 
new  party,  163;  in  Rosetta  slave 


case,  165, 166  ;  his  action  in  the  Gar 
ner  slave  case,  166,  167 ;  later,  de 
fends  his  cautious  action,  167  ;  in 
the  Anderson  case,  168  ;  agrees  with 
Cass  and  Buchanan  to  have  suits 
dropped,  168 ;  announces  purpose  to 
assert  state  rights,  169 ;  prevents 
violence  in  Oberlin  rescue  case, 
169  ;  aids  and  counsels  Kansas  free- 
state  men,  171 ;  urges  Governor 
Grimes  of  Iowa  to  act,  172 ;  suggests 
that  Ohio  intervene  to  secure  ingress 
of  its  citizens  to  Kansas,  172  ;  pre 
pared  to  disregard  the  Supreme 
Court  if  pro-slavery,  173;  advises 
the  acceptance  and  later  modifica 
tion  of  the  Lecompton  constitution, 
173 ;  disapproves  of  a  Republican 
coalition  with  Douglas,  174 ;  sub 
scribes  to  aid  John  Brown,  174  ;  de 
nies  complicity  in  Brown's  raid,  175; 
defies  Wise's  threat  of  invading 
Ohio,  175 ;  his  governorship  occu 
pied  with  slavery  interests,  176 ; 
the  leading  anti-slavery  man  in  the 
Republican  party,  177. 

Candidate  for  Presidency.  Begins 
to  canvass  for  the  Republican  nom 
ination,  178 ;  asks  his  friends  for  as 
sistance,  179  ;  his  leading  support 
ers,  180;  takes  part  in  Illinois 
campaign  of  1858,  180  ;  reflected  to 
the  Senate,  181 ;  damaged  as  a  can 
didate  by  his  tariff  views,  181  ;  feels 
sure  of  unanimous  support  of  Ohio? 
182;  unpopular  with  Whigs,  183; 
on  corruption  of  New  York  politics, 
185  ;  his  opinion  of  his  rivals,  187, 
188 ;  loses  delegates  in  Ohio,  189 ; 
declines  to  bribe,  190;  his  support 
at  the  Republican  convention,  191, 
192  ;  fails  to  secure  unit  rule  for 
Olu'o,  193  ;  congratulates  Lincoln  on 
his  nomination,  195  ;  reasons  for  his 
failure,  195  ;  wishes  to  avoid  vio 
lence,  but  maintain  the  Union,  200  ; 
his  claims  for  a  cabinet  position, 
202  ;  offered  Treasury  Department 
by  Lincoln,  203  ;  warns  Seward 
against  concession,  203 ;  his  action 
in  the  peace  conference,  204;  in 
trigues  to  keep  him  out  of  cabinet, 
205;  reasons  for  his  appointment, 


446 


INDEX 


206 ;  hesitates  to  accept  nomination, 
206. 

Secretary  of  Treasury.  Does  not 
foresee  his  difficulties,  207  ;  does  not 
expect  to  control  Lincoln,  207 ;  op 
poses  provisioning  of  Sumter,  209; 
willing  to  recognize  seceded  States, 
209,  210;  later,  advises  relieving 
Sumter,  210  ;  assumes  military  du 
ties  on  outbreak  of  war,  211 ;  frames 
Orders  15  and  16,  212  ;  keeps  on 
good  terms  with  Cameron,  212  ;  rep 
resents  the  West  in  the  cabinet,  212 ; 
his  supervision  of  Western  move 
ments,  212,  213  ;  corresponds  with 
generals,  214  ;  appealed  to  for  fa 
vors,  214  ;  demands  a  share  of  the 
diplomatic  places,  214  ;  urges  return 
of  Mason  and  Slidell,  215  ;  begins  to 
reorganize  the  Treasury,  215  ;  his 
policy  regarding  new  appointments, 
216-219 ;  reappoints  a  few  officials, 
217  ;  appoints  a  friend  to  the  collec- 
torship  of  New  York,  217  ;  appealed 
to  for  spoils,  218;  appoints  none  but 
Republicans  or  War  Democrats,  219; 
not  interfered  with  by  Lincoln,  219; 
employs  women  as  clerks,  220; 
makes  new  loans,  221 ;  proposes  to 
Congress  new  loans  and  taxes,  221 ; 
his  relations  with  bankers,  222 ; 
obliges  them  to  take  up  Treasury 
notes  by  threat  of  suspension,  222, 
223  ;  his  subsequent  loans  in  1861, 
223 ;  his  relations  with  McClellan, 
224 ;  confines  his  interest  more  to 
the  Treasury,  224  ;  expects  revenue 
from  confiscations,  224 ;  manages 
seizure  and  sale  of  confiscated  pro 
perty,  225 ;  regulates  commerce  to 
prevent  trade  with  the  South,  225- 
229 ;  tries  to  check  corruption  in 
agents,  228  ;  opposes  opening  Missis 
sippi  River  to  trade,  228  ;  his  diffi 
cult  situation  in  December,  1861, 
230 ;  refuses  to  aid  state  banks  to 
maintain  their  notes,  230,  231  ;  una 
ble  to  compel  public  confidence,  231 ; 
his  course  discussed,  232,  233  ;  his 
plans  ignored  by  Congress,  234  ;  not 
able  to  manage  Congress,  234;  lacks 
supporters  in  Congress,  235;  unable 
to  predict  expenditures,  235  ;  his 


first  report  of  1861,  236;  reluctant  to 
advise  taxation,  236,  237 ;  prefers 
loans,  237  ;  proposes  a  banking  sys 
tem,  238  ;  secures  passage  of  new 
taxes,  238  ;  advantages  of  his  plan 
over  that  adopted,  240  ;  issues  vari 
ous  forms  of  Treasury  notes,  241, 
242  ;  fails  to  secure  good  terms  for 
the  "  five-twenty  "  bonds,  243  ;  em 
ploys  Jay  Cooke  as  general  agent, 
244 ;  annoyed  by  wild  suggestions, 
245 ;  willing  to  rely  on  demand  notes 
without  legal  tender,  246;  tries  to 
prevent  issue  of  legal  tender  notes, 
247,  249;  fails  to  protest  on  passage 
of  legal  tender  act,  247  ;  yields  to 
general  demand  for  legal  tender, 
250,  251 ;  does  not  foresee  the  over 
issue  of  notes,  251  ;  does  not  foresee 
effect  on  gold,  252  ;  represents  anti- 
slavery  element  in  the  cabinet,  253  ; 
defends  Lincoln's  action  in  annul 
ling  Fremont's  emancipation  order, 
256 ;  suggests  employment  of  fugi 
tive  slaves  in  the  war,  257  ;  takea 
measures  to  benefit  refugees,  259 ; 
aids  fugitives  on  Sea  Islands,  260 ; 
opposes  Lincoln's  colonization  ideas, 
261 ;  tries  to  prevent  revocation  of 
Hunter's  proclamation,  262  ;  looked 
to  by  abolitionists  to  influence  the 
President,  263  ;  predicts  emancipa 
tion  even  at  cost  of  slave  insurrec 
tion,  264;  urges  a  proclamation, 
264-266  ;  describes  in  his  diary  Lin 
coln's  reading  of  proclamation  to 
cabinet,  266-269  ;  promises  to  sup 
port  this  policy,  268  ;  makes  sugges 
tions  for  final  draft  of  emancipation 
proclamation,  270;  urges  abolition 
in  border  States,  271  ;  supervises 
freedmen,  271  ;  urges  enlistment  of 
negroes,  272  ;  suggests  universal  suf 
frage  in  reconstruction  on  an  edu 
cational  qualification,  272  ;  distrusts 
state  banks  as  federal  agents,  275 ; 
early  suggests  a  tax  on  bank  notes, 
276  ;  urges  a  federal  banking  system 
in  1861,  276,  277  ;  secures  Lincoln's 
aid,  278  ;  fails  to  induce  state  banks 
to  use  first  bank  act,  279  ;  suggests 
compelling  state  banks  to  take  fed 
eral  charters,  280 ;  proposes  a  new 


INDEX 


447 


bill  which  at  first  fails,  280,  281;  his 
plan  carried  out  after  his  retire 
ment,  282  ;  his  credit  for  the  mea 
sure,  282,  283;  mortified  at  depre 
ciation  of  legal  tender  notes,  283  ; 
attempts  to  explain  it,  283;  accuses 
bank  issues  of  inflation,  284 ;  fails  to 
introduce  legal  tenders  in  California, 
284  ;  attempts  to  reduce  premium  by 
selling  gold,  285  ;  proposes  bill  to 
punish  gold  speculation,  28C ;  his 
resignation  not  connected  with  the 
repeal  of  the  bill,  287  ;  estimate  of 
his  services  as  secretary,  287-289  ; 
his  difficulties,  287,  288 ;  his  plans 
hampered  by  Congress,  288  ;  shows 
short-sightedness  in  dealings  with 
legal  tender,  288,  289 ;  his  persist 
ence  and  honesty,  289 ;  fails  to  be 
come  intimate  with  Lincoln,  290 ; 
does  not  sympathize  with  Lincoln's 
humor,  291 ;  left  full  authority  by 
Lincoln  in  his  department,  291 ;  his 
attitude  toward  slavery  contrasted 
with  Lincoln's,  291,  292  ;  more  of  a 
party  man  than  Lincoln,  292  ;  tries 
to  interfere  in  military  matters,  292 ; 
complains  to  Stanton  of  wasteful 
ness,  293  ;  disappointed  at  Lincoln's 
failure  to  consult  with  the  cabinet, 
293,  294;  suggests  military  move 
ments,  294  ;  joins  rest  of  cabinet  in 
trying  to  force  McClellan's  dis 
missal,  294  ;  corresponds  with  army 
officers,  295-297  ;  favors  McDowell 
and  Pope,  2%;  seeks  friendship 
with  Hooker,  Rosecrans,  and  Grant, 
296, 297  ;  questionable  appearance  of 
his  conduct,  297  ;  writes  in  criticism 
of  the  administration,  298,  299  ;  his 
failure  to  understand  the  situation, 
299,  300  ;  disapproves  of  military 
government,  300,  301 ;  remains  on 
good  terms  with  Stanton,  301  ;  at 
first  a  rival  of  Seward,  301  ;  agrees 
with  Seward  to  resign  in  1862,  302 ; 
his  reasons,  302,  303  ;  slow  to  with 
draw  his  resignation,  303 ;  sends 
Lincoln  explanatory  letters,  304 
demands  right  to  nominate  treasury 
officials  without  dictation  of  sena 
tors,  305  ;  threatens  to  resign,  305 
protests  against  Lincoln's  remova 


of  Smith,  305,  306 ;  won  over  by  Lin 
coln,  306,  307  ;  not  disobedient  or 
presumptuous,  308 ;  tries  to  heal 
dissensions  in  Ohio,  309 ;  begins  to 
hope  for  nomination  in  1864,  309  ; 
states  his  intention  to  be  fair  to  Lin 
coln,  310  ;  wishes  to  be  candidate  of 
the  war  Democrats,  310  ;  refuses  to 
use  Treasury  patronage  to  aid  his 
canvass,  311;  publicly  recommended 
by  the  Pomeroy  Circular,  312 ; 
apologizes  to  Lincoln  and  offers 
to  resign,  312  ;  attacked  by  the 
Blair  brothers  in  Congress,  313; 
enraged  on  learning  of  Blair's  ap 
pointment  in  the  army,  314  ;  with 
draws  from  the  canvass,  314  ;  grows 
irritable,  315  ;  again  threatens  re 
signation  over  a  question  of  patron 
age,  315 ;  has  difficulties  over  the 
position  of  assistant  treasurer,  316  ; 
again  offers  resignation,  317;  sur 
prised  at  Lincoln's  acceptance  of  it, 
317  ;  his  comments,  317,  318. 

Chief  Justice.  His  early  interest  in 
the  Supreme  Court,  319 ;  hints  to 
Lincoln  that  he  would  like  to  suc 
ceed  Taney,  319 ;  ignorant  of  Lin 
coln's  intention  to  nominate  him, 
320  ;  his  opinion  of  Evarts's  merits, 

320  ;  opposition  to  his  nomination, 

321  ;   nominated  and  confirmed  by 
the   Senate,   321  ;    thanks  Lincoln, 
321 ;  his  fitness  for  the  bench,  322  ; 
his  court  patronage,  322,  323  ;  finds 
Supreme  Court  in  a  depressed  con 
dition,  323  ;  doubts  his  chance  to  aid 
in  reconstruction,  328  ;  opposes  Lin 
coln's  theory  of  reconstruction,  330; 
criticises  his  amnesty  proclamation, 
331  ;  favors  negro  suffrage,  331,  335, 
339  ;  visits  South  in  1865,  334;  favors 
Freedman's  Bureau,  337 ;  does  not 
take  part  in  reconstruction  contro 
versy,  337  ;  alienated  from  Johnson, 
339  ;  approves  Civil  Rights  Act,  340; 
suggests    Fourteenth    Amendment, 
340,  341 ;   refuses  to  hold  court  in 
districts  under  military  government, 
343  ;  holds  court  in  South  Carolina, 

343  ;   has  controversy  with  Sickles, 

344  ;  dissents  from  opinion  in  Milli- 
gan  Case,  345 ;  dissents  in  Cummings 


448 


INDEX 


Case,  347  ;  and  in  Garland  Case, 
348;  gives  decision  annulling  ap 
prentice  act  in  Maryland,  351 ;  re 
fuses  to  allow  prosecution  of  Davis 
for  treason,  352,  353  ;  declares  Da 
vis  free  under  Fourteenth  Amend 
ment,  353  ;  value  of  his  action,  354  ; 
prevents  consideration  of  recon 
struction  acts,  356 ;  presides  over 
impeachment  of  Johnson,  358-361  ; 
disapproves  of  the  impeachment, 
358  ;  insists  upon  the  Senate  sitting 
as  a  court,  359  ;  decides  on  admis- 
sibility  of  evidence,  359  ;  votes  to 
break  a  tie,  360 ;  denounced  by  radi 
cals,  360 ;  surprised  at  Johnson's 
escape,  360  ;  his  conduct  creditable, 
360 ;  continues  to  consider  himself 
a  candidate  for  the  presidency,  361 ; 
finds  judicial  office  uninteresting, 
361 ;  effect  of  his  ambition  on  his 
career,  362  ;  expects  Republican 
nomination  in  1868,  362;  opposes  a 
military  candidate,  362  ;  his  secret 
canvass,  363;  recognizes  hopeless 
ness  of  opposition  to  Grant,  363  ;  de 
sires  Democratic  nomination,  364  ; 
his  grounds  of  opposition  to  the  Re 
publican  programme,  364;  his  ap 
parent  inconsistency  in  joining  a 
party  opposed  to  negro  suffrage,  365 ; 
elements  of  strength  in  his  position, 
366  ;  declares  himself  a  Democrat, 
366 ;  announces  his  policy  toward 
the  South,  367  ;  has  no  strong  sup 
porters  in  the  Democratic  conven 
tion,  367;  fails  to  be  nominated,  368; 
reasons  for  his  failure,  368  ;  remains 
statesman  as  well  as  judge,  369 ; 
defends  negro  suffrage,  369,  370  ; 
wishes  universal  amnesty,  371  ; 
doubts  wisdom  of  Fifteenth  Amend 
ment,  371 ;  assists  in  securing  its 
:  ratification,  372  ;  dislikes  centraliza 
tion  resulting  from  the  war,  372 ; 
admits  a  negro  to  bar  of  Supreme 
Court,  373  ;  dissents  from  opinions 
of  court  enforcing  payment  on  slave 
contracts,  373 ;  on  the  status  of  the 
Confederate  States  Government, 
375  ;  dissents  in  TarbelVs  Case,  377  ; 
writes  opinion  in  Texas  v.  White, 
378 ;  his  doctrine  of  the  effects  of 


secession,  378, 379  ;  in  White  v.  Hart 
approves  the  reconstruction  policy, 
380  ;  asks  circuit  judges  to  allow  Su 
preme  Court  to  pass  on  Civil  Rights 
Bill,  381  ;  dissents  from  decision  in 
Slaughter-house  Cases,  381,  382  ;  his 
opinion  in  Veazie  Bank  v.  Fenno, 
386,  387  ;  while  secretary,  stands  as 
defender  of  legal  tender  acts,  389  ; 
later,  urges  speedy  resumption,  390; 
deplores  continuance  of  legal  tender 
act  in  time  of  peace,  392  ;  begins  to 
consider  possibility  of  disallowing 
legal  tender,  393 ;  his  opinion  in 
Hepburn  v.  Griswold,  394-396  ;  ac 
cuses  Grant  of  reorganizing  court  so 
as  to  reverse  decision,  399  ;  protests 
against  rehearing  of  legal  tender 
cases,  402,  403  ;  his  dissenting  opin 
ion,  407,  408,  410  ;  reasons  for  his 
change  of  mind  since  1862,  410  ;  his 
action  unfortunate,  411 ;  suffers  in 
health  from  judicial  labors,  412;  at 
tacked  by  paralysis,  413  ;  ready  for 
Democratic  nomination  in  1872,413; 
last  illness  and  death,  414. 
Personal  Characteristics.  Personal 
appearance,  415 ;  self-importance, 
415;  fondness  for  building,  416;  slow 
to  pay  his  debts,  416 ;  prospers  from 
railway  and  telegraph  stock,  417 ; 
makes  unfortunate  investments  at 
Jay  Cooke's  suggestion,  417,  418; 
generous  to  poor  relations,  418  ;  ex 
pected  to  marry  a  fourth  time,  419  ; 
his  relations  with  his  son-in-law, 
419;  interest  of  his  daughter  in  his 
political  ambitions,  420 ;  his  private 
life,  421  ;  his  friendships,  421  ;  has 
few  friends  among  leaders,  421,  422; 
liis  enemies,  422  ;  suffers  from  anti- 
negro  prejudices,  423 ;  lacks  ele 
ments  of  popularity,  423 ;  his  diaries, 
423 ;  his  religious  nature,  424  ;  his 
honesty,  424  ;  misled  by  self-esteem 
and  optimism,  424, 425;  his  standing 
as  a  judge,  425, 426  ;  his  masterpiece 
in  Texas  v.  White,  426;  his  industry 
devoted  to  too  many  objects,  427  ; 
his  incorruptibility  in  the  Treasury, 
427  ;  not  afraid  to  change  his  views 
to  his  own  hurt,  428  ;  in  politics,  al 
ways  practical,  428  ;  stands  consist- 


INDEX 


449 


ently  for  anti-slavery  principles, 
429  ;  favors  national  banking  system 
continuously,  429 ;  adheres  always 
to  state  rights,  429 ;  fails  to  gain 
greater  reputation  because  of  Lin 
coln's  preeminence,  430  ;  gains  mod 
eration  and  breadth  superior  to 
Seward  and  Adams,  430 ;  makes 
mistake  of  measuring  himself  with 
Lincoln,  431 ;  his  error  in  aban 
doning  Lincoln  in  18G4,  431  ;  unable 
to  subordinate  himself,  432  ;  final 
summary  of  his  career,  434,  435. 
Political  Opinions.  Abolitionists, 
50,  54-5G  ;  anti-slavery  programme, 
59-61,  68,  92, 125, 176;  appointments 
to  office,  9,  157,  216-219,  304,  306  ; 
banks,  national  and  state,  251,  276- 
283,  383,  387  ;  cabinet,  293,  294,  304; 
Civil  Rights  Act,  340;  coercion  in 
1861,  200,  203-205,  209,  210,  429; 
colonization,  261  ;  Compromise  of 
1850,  124,  126,130;  Constitution  and 
slavery,  68-70,  78,  126  ;  Confederate 
government,  375,  376 ;  democracy, 
67,  68,  366;  Democratic  party,  90, 
91,  94,  95,  97,  104, 112-115,  131,  132, 
151,  152,  364,  366,  413  ;  District  of 
Columbia,  abolition  in,  46,  70,  126  ; 
emancipation,  256,  262,  265,266,  268, 
271 ;  Fourteenth  Amendment,  341, 
382;  freedmen,  259,  271,  331,  337; 
free  speech,  47;  Fugitive  Slave  Law, 
71,  74,  77-80,  126,  130,  165,  167-170  ; 
habeas  corpus,  suspension  of,  300, 
345,  377  ;  impeachment,  358-361 ;  in 
ternal  improvements,  101,  116,  118; 
judiciary,  319;  Kansas,  171-173; 
Know  Nothings,  153,  154;  legal  ten 
der  notes,  245-249, 283-286, 389,  392- 
396, 407-411 ;  Nebraska  Bill,  133, 137, 
139-141,  144  ;  negro  soldiers,  262, 
264,  272  ;  negro  suffrage,  272,  273, 
332,  336,  339,  364,  366,  370-372  ; 
ordinance  of  1787,  19,  77 ;  public 
debt,  221  ;  public  lands,  117  ;  presi 
dency,  ambition  for,  159-161,  178- 
196,  309-314,  361-363,  413  ;  recon 
struction,  330,  331,  339,  340,  343, 
347,  356,  371,  372,  380  ;  Republican 
party,  151,  153,  162,  174,308,  364; 
slavery,  47-53,  72, 176,  291,  373, 429; 
tariff,  101,  181,  237  ;  taxation,  236- 


238  ;  Trent  affair,  215 ;  treason  of 
Jefferson  Davis,  352,  353;  Union, 
nature  of,  378,  379  ;  veto  power,  20  ; 
war,  conduct  of,  297-300,  302  ;  war 
finances,  230-233,  235-237,  241,  242, 
387,  388;  Whig  party,  86-90,  97; 
Wilinot  proviso,  127-129. 

Cincinnati,  Southern  elements  in,  14  ; 
social  life  in,  16  ;  riots  in,  against 
negroes,  31 ;  mobs  in,  against  the 
"  Philanthropist,"  45,  46,  49,  50. 

Cincinnati  College,  studies  of  Chase 
at,  4. 

Cisco,  John  J.,  retains  office  of  assist 
ant  treasurer  at  Chase's  and  Lin 
coln's  request,  217,  222  ;  urges  issue 
of  legal  tender,  250 ;  resigns  his 
office,  315 ;  persuaded  to  withdraw 
resignation,  316. 

Clay,  Cassius  M.,  suggests  Democratic 
nomination  of  Chase  in  1872,  413. 

Clay,  Henry,  relations  with  Chase  in 
1829,  7  ;  alienates  anti-slavery  men 
in  1844,  93;  Chase's  opinion  of  his 
compromise  resolutions,  124 ;  calls 
Chase  an  abolitionist,  131. 

Clifford,  Nathan,  member  of  Supreme 
Court  during  war,  325. 

Cobb,  Howell,  his  management  of 
Treasury,  220. 

Coffin,  Levi,  agent  of  Underground 
Railroad  in  Ohio,  39  ;  typical  West 
ern  abolitionist,  57. 

Colby,  Isaac,  brother-in-law  of  Chase, 
49. 

Colfax,  Schuyler,  favors  Douglas  for 
Republican  candidate,  180  ;  suggests 
regulating  depreciation  of  notes  by 
law,  285. 

Colonization  urged  by  Lincoln,  261. 

Compromise  of  1850,  struggle  over, 
124-129  ;  passed  because  of  death  of 
Taylor,  129. 

Congress,  its  policy  in  recognizing 
slavery,  46,  69,  70  ;  its  power  over 
slavery  in  Territories,  127 ;  passes 
Nebraska  Bill,  146 ;  efforts  in,  to 
compromise  in  1860,  200-202  ;  mem 
bers  of,  insist  on  dictating  appoint 
ments,  218  ;  grants  loans  and  taxes 
in  1861,  221,222;  passes  confiscation 
acts,  224,  225  ;  postpones  financial 
legislation,  234  ;  led  by  radicals,  ina- 


450 


INDEX 


bility  of  Chase  to  control,  234,  235  ; 
raises  tariff,  238,  239  ;  adopts  new 
internal  taxes,  239;  passes  legal 
tender  act,  246  ;  passes  Crittenden 
resolution,  254  ;  passes  emancipation 
acts,  257,  258 ;  passes  act  to  arm 
negroes,  203  ;  rejects  Chase's  bank 
scheme,  277  ;  passes  national  bank 
acts,  279,  282  ;  passes  and  repeals 
"Gold  Bill,"  286;  authorizes  sus 
pension  of  habeas  corpus,  327 ;  passes 
early  acts  in  behalf  of  negroes,  336, 
337, 340  ;  adopts  Fourteenth  Amend 
ment,  340,  341  ;  passes  reconstruc 
tion  acts,  341,  342 ;  prevents  ap 
pointments  by  Johnson  to  Supreme 
Court,  342 ;  proposed  attack  of,  on 
Supreme  Court,  354,  355  ;  removes 
McCardle  Case  from  its  jurisdiction, 
355  ;  impeaches  Johnson,  357-361  ; 
passes  secoud  Civil  Rights  Act,  381; 
favors  contraction  of  currency,  390, 
391;  limits  contraction,  391;  orders 
reissue  of  legal  tenders,  391 ;  pledges 
faith  to  redeem  notes,  391. 
Constitution,  in  relation  to  slavery,  63, 
65-67  ;  appealed  to  in  all  arguments, 
66  ;  Chase's  historical  argument  as 
to  its  anti-slavery  character,  G8,  69; 
Chase's  argument  on,  in  Van  Zandt 
case,  78 ;  its  position  on  slavery  in 
Territories,  127  ;  opinion  of  Attor 
ney-General  on  legal  tender,  247  ;  in 
relation  to  emancipation  proclama 
tion,  271 ;  discussion  over  right  to 
suspend  habeas  corpus,  300,  301  ; 
cases  involving,  during  Civil  War, 
326  ;  Merryman  Case,  326,  327  ;  in 
Cummings  and  Garland  Cases,  346- 
348  ;  in  relation  to  Maryland  appren 
tice  law,  351 ;  Fifteenth  Amendment 
to,  371,  372 ;  in  White  v.  Hart  and 
Osborn  v.  JVicolson,  373,  374 ;  in 
cases  on  nature  of  Confederate  Gov 
ernment,  375-377  ;  in  Texas  v.  White, 
on  nature  of  secession,  378-380  ;  in 
White  v.  Hart,  on  reconstruction, 
380  ;  in  Slaughter-house  Cases ,  on 
Fourteenth  Amendment,  381-383  ; 
cases  upholding  taxing  power  of 
United  States,  3S5-388  ;  early  cases 
on  legal  tender  in  state  courts,  389  ; 
early  cases  on  legal  tender  in  Su 


preme  Court,  393;  in  Hepburn  v. 
Griswold,  394-397  ;  in  Legal  Tender 
Cases,  404-408. 

Cooke,  H.  D.,  Chase's  executor,  417. 

Cooke,  Jay,  has  success  in  distributing 
treasury  notes,  223  ;  appointed  gen 
eral  agent  for  placing  U.  S.  bonds, 
244  ;  tries  to  induce  New  York  edi 
tors  to  favor  Chase's  bank  bill,  279  ; 
tries  to  benefit  Chase  and  induces 
him  to  make  poor  investments,  417- 

Corwin,  R.  C.,  asks  Chase's  advice 
about  aiding  a  fugitive  slave,  81. 

Corwin,  Thomas,  his  success  as  a 
speaker,  58,  156. 

Cotton,  smuggling  of,  during  war,  227, 
228. 

Court  of  Claims,  its  creation  favored 
by  Chase,  118. 

Cox,  Jacob  D.,  studies  law  under 
Chase,  25. 

Cranch,  William,  reluctant  to  admit 
Chase  to  the  bar,  11,  13. 

Crothers,  Samuel,  early  abolitionist  in 
Ohio,  38. 

Curtis,  George  T.,  remonstrates  to 
Chase  on  efforts  of  Treasury  De 
partment  to  influence  New  York 
courts,  389. 

Curtis,  George  W.,  delegate  to  Repub 
lican  convention  of  1860,  188. 

DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE,  studies  of  Chase 
in,  5  ;  visited  by  Chase  in  1858,  179. 

Davis,  David,  candidate  to  succeed 
Taney,  320 ;  appointed  to  Supreme 
Court,  -325  ;  dissents  in  Cummings 
Case,  347  ;  dissents  in  case  of  Veazie 
Hank  v.  Fenno,  387. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  offers  resolution  to 
permit  slavery  in  Territories,  128 ; 
cabinet  officer  under  Franklin 
Pierce,  132  ;  refuses  fellowship  to 
Douglas,  178  ;  taken  prisoner,  339  ; 
anxiety  of  Johnson  to  have  him  tried 
for  treason,  352  ;  refusal  of  Chase  to 
sit  in  his  trial,  352,  353  ;  released  by 
Chase  in  Circuit  Court,  353 ;  neces 
sity  for  his  release,  354. 

Democratic  party,  early  attitude  of 
Chase  toward,  88;  passes  Fugitive 
Slave  Law  in  Ohio,  90;  wins  election 
of  1844,  93;  not  attacked  by  Liberty 


INDEX 


451 


party  because  considered  hopeless, 
93;  looked  to  by  Chase  as  likely  to 
become  anti-slavery,  94,  95  ;  nomi 
nates  C  ass,  %;  expected  by  Chase  to 
be  forced  to  join  Barnburners,  104 ; 
contests  organization  of  Ohio  House 
with  Whigs,  105,  10G;  given  control 
of  House  by  Free-Soilers,  107; 
agrees  to  vote  for  Chase  in  return 
for  state  judges,  108,  111;  members 
of,  in  Senate  decline  to  recognize 
Chase,  114;  Chase's  hopes  of  re 
forming,  115;  abandoned  by  Chase 
in  1852-53,  132;  over-confident  in 
1854,  133;  defeated  in  Congressional 
election,  151 ;  war  faction  of,  sup 
ports  Lincoln,  254;  fuses  tempora 
rily  with  Republicans,  25") ;  reor 
ganizes  in  18G8,  3G5;  candidacy  of 
Chase  for  its  nomination,  3G5-367; 
its  convention  of  1868  and  candi 
dates,  3G7 ;  stampeded  for  Seymour, 
368;  reasons  why  it  failed  to  nom 
inate  Chase,  368;  renewed  desire  of 
Chase  for  its  nomination  in  1872, 
413. 

Denison,  George  S.,  complains  to 
Chase  of  corrupt  trade  with  Con 
federacy  at  New  Orleans,  226,  228; 
tries  to  stimulate  enlistment  of  ne 
groes,  272. 

DeWitt,  Alexander,  signs  appeal  of 
Independent  Democrats,  139. 

District  of  Columbia,  slavery  in,  46; 
movement  for  abolition  in,  46,  47; 
its  status  under  Constitution,  126; 
emancipation  in,  257. 

Dixon,  James,  quarrel  of  Chase  with, 
over  patronage,  305. 

Dodge,  Henry,  in  Nebraska  debate, 
145. 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  calls  Chase's 
election  in  1849  a  corrupt  bargain, 
109;  votes  against  executive  ses 
sions,  116;  supports  granting  land 
to  Illinois  Central  Railroad,  117; 
votes  for  Chase's  anti- slavery 
amendment  in  1850,  129;  too 
strong  for  Chase  in  debate,  131;  in 
troduces  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  133; 
on  Chase  as  an  opponent,  134;  his 
purpose  in  introducing  bill,  135; 
his  great  powers  as  a  debater,  136  ; 


secures  aid  from  Pierce,  137;  unable 
to  understand  anti-slavery  men,  137; 
assailed  in  Appeal  of  Independent 
Democrats,  141 ;  attacks  Chase  sav 
agely  in  Senate,  141,  142;  forces 
Chase  into  a  disclaimer,  143;  de 
bates  Nebraska  Bill  against  Chase, 
144,  145;  lobbies  to  carry  bill 
through  House,  145, 14G  ;  denounces 
new  party  as  dangerous  to  Union, 
147  ;  does  not  foresee  rising  of  the 
North,  150,  171 ;  denounces  emi 
grant  aid  societies,  171  ;  opposes 
Lecompton  constitution,  174 ;  urged 
by  Greeley  as  Republican  candidate, 
174,  180  ;  defeated  in  180G,  196  ;  sup 
ports  Lincoln's  administration,  254. 

Dresser,  Amos,  whipped  in  Tennessee 
for  possessing  abolition  documents, 
40  ;  student  at  Oberlin,  42. 

Durkee,  Charles,  in  House  in  1849, 
114. 

Eels,  Samuel,  law  partner  of  Chase, 
23;  visits  Birney,  51. 

Emancipation,  early  demand  for,  250, 
263,  265  ;  discussion  in  cabinet  over, 
265,  266  ;  preliminary  proclamation 
of,  discussed,  266-270;  Blair's  op 
position  to,  269. 

Evarts,  William  M.,  thought  by  Chase 
to  be  a  candidate  for  chief  justice 
ship,  320,  321. 

Ewing,  Thomas,  his  career  in  Con 
gress,  15G. 

Fee,  John  G.,  Kentucky  abolitionist, 
corresponds  with  Chase,  his  later 
career,  83. 

Fessenden,  W.  P.,  in  Nebraska  de 
bate,  145  ;  supports  Chase's  finan 
cial  schemes,  235  ;  succeeds  Chase 
in  Treasury,  318. 

Field,  David  Dudley,  argues  in  favor 
of  constitutionality  of  legal  tender, 
389. 

Field,  Maunsell,  on  Chase's  indipna- 
tion  at  wasteful  expenditure,  292; 
offered  place  of  assistant  treasurer 
by  Chase,  315. 

Field,  Stephen  J.,  appointed  to  Su 
preme  Court,  325;  said  to  have 
reported  that  the  court  held  the 


452 


INDEX 


reconstruction  acts  unconstitu 
tional,  356;  dissents  in  Slaughter 
house  Cases,  381. 

Financial  history,  bad  condition  of 
the  Treasury  in  I860,  220  ;  failure  of 
Cobb's  loan  and  issue  of  treasury 
notes,  220  ;  Chase's  early  loans,  221 ; 
new  loans  and  taxes  granted  by 
Congress,  221;  difficulties  in  placing 
these  loans,  222,  223;  situation  in 
December,  1861,  230  ;  refusal  of 
Chase  to  aid  banks,  231 ;  suspension 
of  specie  payments  by  banks',  231  ; 
lack  of  general  confidence,  232  ;  dis 
cussion  of  Chase's  failure  to  prevent 
suspension,  232,  233  ;  errors  due  to 
expectation  of  a  short  war,  233  ;  re 
venue  still  deficient,  234  ;  inability 
of  Chase  to  foresee  expenditures, 
235  ;  Chase's  report  of  December, 
1861,  236;  reluctance  of  Chase  to 
ask  for  taxes  justified,  237 ;  new 
tariff  rates,  238  ;  new  internal  taxes 
and  their  slow  increase,  239  ;  great 
receipts  after  Chase's  retirement, 
240  ;  use  of  treasury  notes,  240, 241; 
new  forms  devised  by  Chase,  241, 
242 ;  the  five-twenty  bonds,  242, 
243 ;  effect  of  legal  tenders  upon 
them,  243 ;  revenue  and  expendi 
tures  to  1864,  244,  245 ;  disappear 
ance  of  specie,  245 ;  demand  for 
currency,  245  ;  passage  of  legal  ten 
der  act,  246 ;  discussion  of  its  ne 
cessity,  248-250 ;  backwardness  of 
Chase  in  taxation,  249 ;  public  de 
mand  for  legal  tender,  250,  251  ; 
legal  tenders  cause  speculation  in 
gold,  252  ;  condition  of  state  banks 
during  war,  274,  275;  proposed 
taxation  of  state  bank  notes,  276 ; 
Chase's  scheme  for  national  banks, 

276  ;  continued  use  of  legal  tenders, 

277  ;  gradual  growth  of  feeling  in  fa 
vor  of  national  banks,  278  ;  the  first 
national  bank  act  and   its  failure, 
279  ;  proposal  of  Chase  to  tax  state 
bank  notes,  280,  281  ;  amended  bank 
bill,  282  ;  taxation  of  state  bank  cir 
culation,  .282;    success  of  Chase's 
policy,   282,    283;    depreciation    of 
legal  tender,  283-285;  gold  contin 
ues  on    Pacific    coast,   284 ;    futile 


measures  to  prevent  gold  specula 
tion,  285;  failure  of  the  "Gold 
Bill,"  286  ;  criticism  of  Chase's 
measures,  288,  289  ;  early  cases  up 
hold  legal  tender,  389  ;  redemption 
begun  under  McCulloch,  390;  re 
demption  of  legal  tender  prevented, 
391 ;  Hepburn  v.  Griswold,  392- 
396  ;  Legal  Tender  Cases,  404-412  ; 
discussion  of  question  from  finan 
cial  standpoint,  410,  411. 

Finney,  Jerry,  a  fugitive  slave,  kid 
naped  at  Columbus,  82. 

Flint,  Timothy,  publishes  "Western 
Monthly  Review,"  18. 

Follett,  Orren,  Ohio  editor,  corre 
sponds  with  Chase,  62. 

Foote,  S.  A.,  argues  m  favor  of  the 
constitutionality  of  legal  tender, 
389. 

Freedmen,  attempt  of  Chase  to  bene 
fit,  at  Port  Royal,  259,  260 ;  propos 
als  to  enlist,  262 ;  armed  by  act  of 
Congress,  263;  continued  efforts  of 
Chase  to  assist,  271,  272;  proposal 
of  Chase  to  grant  suffrage  to,  272, 
273,  332,  335,  336,  339;  assailed  by 
vagrant  laws,  336;  protected  by 
Bureau  of  Refugees,  336,  337 ;  mis 
sionary  movement  in  behalf  of,  337 ; 
protected  by  Civil  Rights  Act,  340; 
and  by  Fourteenth  Amendment, 
341  ;  exercise  of  suffrage  by,  under 
debate  in  1868,  365-368;  Chase's 
continued  advocacy  of,  370,  371. 

Free-Soil  party,  first  steps  towards,  in 
Ohio  taken  by  Chase,  96;  proposed 
by  Free  Territory  convention,  97; 
formed  at  Buffalo  convention,  98- 
101;  its  vote  in  1848,  102;  expected 
by  Chase  to  coalesce  with  Demo 
crats,  102,  104;  disrupted  by  events 
in  Ohio  senatorial  election,  110;  ef 
forts  of  Chase  to  support,  131 ;  aban 
doned  by  Chase  in  1851,  131 ;  re 
joined  by  Chase  in  1852,  132; 
nominates  Hale,  its  vote,  132;  in 
creases  vote  in  1853,  150. 

FnSmont,  John  C.,  nominated  for 
president  in  1856,  160,  16-1 ;  issues 
emancipation  proclamation  in  Mis 
souri,  256. 

Fugitive  Slave  Law,  of  1793,  32 ;  can- 


INDEX 


453 


not  be  enforced  in  New  England,  33; 
operates  in  Pennsylvania  and  the 
Northwest,  33;  its  validity  denied 
by  Chase,  71 ;  attacked  by  Chase  in 
Van  Zandt  Case,  77;  in  1850  at 
tacked  by  Chase,  120, 130;  its  effect 
on  the  North,  163;  attempts  of 
States  to  block,  163-165;  fought  by 
Chase's  administration  in  Ohio, 
165-170;  declared  unconstitutional 
in  Wisconsin,  175. 

GARFIELD,  JAMES  A.,  corresponds 
with  Chase,  214,  295;  counsel  for 
Milligan,  345 ;  his  friendship  with 
Chase,  421. 

Garland,  A.  H.,  in  case  before  Su 
preme  Court,  347,  348. 

Garner,  Margaret,  fugitive  slave,  kills 
her  child,  166 ;  struggle  over,  be 
tween  federal  and  Ohio  courts,  166. 

Garuiss,  Catherine  Jane,  marries 
Chase,  her  death,  20. 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  his  success 
in  beginning  anti-slavery  agitation, 
36  ;  his  influence  not  strong  in  the 
West,  36 ;  influences  Weld  of  Lane 
Seminary,  39;  Chase's  opinion  of, 
50,  54  ;  his  views  contrasted  with 
those  of  Chase,  55 ;  character  of 
his  paper,  61 ;  rejoices  at  secession, 
199. 

Germans,  settle  in  Ohio,  15 ;  impor 
tance  of  retaining  them  in  1855, 154, 
155;  recognized  by  Chase,  157  ;  their 
support  expected  by  Chase,  182. 

Gibson,  ,  commits  defalcation 

as  Ohio  state  treasurer,  161,  162  ; 
removed  by  Chase,  162. 

Giddiugs,  Joshua  R.,  representative 
of  Western  Reserve,  43,  57 ;  on  the 
uuconstituti  Quality  of  slavery,  65; 
his  early  career  as  anti- slavery 
leader,  84;  makes  speeches  at  Buf 
falo  convention,  99;  candidate  of 
Free-Soil  Whigs  for  senator  from 
Ohio,  108;  fails  of  election,  109; 
Free-Soil  leader  in  House,  114,  119 ; 
drafts  Appeal  of  Independent  De 
mocrats,  138;  less  prominent  than 
Chase,  176. 

Grant,  Ulysses  S.,  attempts  of  Chase 
to  make  friends  with,  297  ;  prevents 


trial  of  Confederate  generals  for 
treason,  352  ;  appointed  by  Johnson 
to  succeed  Stan  ton,  358  ;  movement 
to  nominate,  in  1868,  363;  appoints 
Boutwell  Secretary  of  Treasury, 
392;  appoints  new  judges  to  Su 
preme  Court,  397 ;  discussion  of  his 
having  packed  the  court,  399-401 ; 
his  administration  disapproved  of 
by  Chase,  413. 

Greeley,  Horace,  corresponds  with 
Chase,  62  ;  hostile  to  Seward,  191  ; 
favors  allowing  peaceable  seces 
sion,  199 ;  works  for  Chase's  nomi 
nation  in  1864,  309  ;  his  campaign  in 
1872,  369  ;  supported  by  Chase,  413. 

Green,  Beriah,  anti-slavery  professor 
at  Western  Reserve  College,  43. 

Grier,  Robert  C.,  in  Supreme  Court 
during  war,  325  ;  dissents  in  case  of 
Texas  v.  White,  379  ;  his  opinion  in 
Hepburn  v.  Griswold,  396  ;  resigns, 
399. 

Grimes,  James  W.,  urged  by  Chase  to 
aid  Kansas  Free-Soilers,  172. 

Groesbeck,  William  M.,  law  student 
under  Chase,  24. 

HALE,  JOHN  P.,  suggested  as  Liberty 
candidate  in  1847,  95  ;  nominated  at 
Buffalo  convention,  96  ;  urged  by 
Chase  to  withdraw,  96  ;  the  logical 
candidate  of  Free-Soilers,  100;  with 
draws  from  Liberty  nomination, 
102 ;  Chase's  estimate  of,  113  ;  ex 
cluded  from  Senate  committees,  114, 
115  ;  not  a  leader  of  Free-Soilers, 
119  ;  Free-Soil  candidate  in  1852, 
132  ;  superior  to  Chase  in  debate, 
148. 

Hall,  James,  issues  ''  Illinois  Maga 
zine  and  Western  Souvenir,"  18. 

Halleck,  General  Henry  W.,  call  of 
Chase  upon,  296. 

Haniliu,  E.  S.,  Ohio  editor,  supporter 
of  Chase,  62;  becomes  Chase's  politi 
cal  lieutenant,  159. 

Hamlin,  Hannibal,  elected  vice-presi 
dent,  196. 

Hammond,  Charles,  joins  Chase  in  a 
protest  against  mobbing  Birney,  49. 

Hanna,  Joshua,  political  lieutenant  of 
Chase,  180  ;  urges  appointments  for 


454 


INDEX 


merit,  218  ;  suggests  an  investment 
for  Chase,  417. 

Hanway,  Castner,  tried  for  treason  in 
resisting  slave-catchers,  1G5. 

Harrison,  William  H.,  supported  by 
Chase  for  President  in  183G,  86;  and 
again  in  1840,  87 ;  alleged  dissatisfac 
tion  of  Chase  with,  87,  88 ;  tries  to 
placate  abolitionists  in  1840,  89  ; 
urged  by  Chase  not  to  favor  slavery, 
89  ;  his  inaugural  disappoints  aboli 
tionists,  89. 

Hart,  Albert  Gaillard,  describes  Buf 
falo  convention,  99-101. 

Hayes,  Rutherford  B.,  in  Rosetta  fugi 
tive  slave  case,  165. 

Henry,  T.  C.,  urges  issue  of  legal  ten 
der,  250. 

Hill,  Judge,  holds  federal  court  in 
Mississippi,  343 ;  asserts  constitu 
tionality  of  reconstruction  law,  350. 

Hoadly,  George,  law  partner  of 
Chase,  24;  studies  law  with  Chase, 
25  ;  on  Chase's  motives  for  leaving 
Whigs  in  1841,  88  ;  Chase's  political 
lieutenant,  159  ;  withdraws  Chase's 
name  from  Republican  convention, 
161  ;  warns  Chase  that  he  has  no 
chance  in  1860,  189. 

Hoar,  Ebenezer  R.,  accused  of  con 
spiring  to  pack  the  Supreme  Court, 
399  ;  his  nomination  to  Supreme 
Court  rejected  by  Senate,  400. 

Hooker,  General  Joseph,  corresponds 
with  Chase,  214,  29G ;  efforts  of 
Chase  in  his  behalf,  297. 

Hooper,  Samuel,  favors  Chase's  bank 
ing  plans,  277. 

Houston,  Sam,  opposes  Nebraska  Bill, 
138. 

Howard,  Mark,  his  nomination  re 
jected  by  Senate,  304. 

Howe,  John  W.,  in  House  in  1849, 
114. 

Hoyt,  Jeanette  Ralston  Chase,  her 
birth,  22 ;  her  marriage,  419,  420. 

Humphrey,  Governor,  brings  suit  to 
restrain  operation  of  reconstruction 
act,  348. 

Hunt,  Randall,  brother-in-law  of 
Chase,  21. 

Hunter,  General  David,  in  command 
in  Carolina,  259  ;  issues  proclama 


tion  freeing  slaves  in  three  States, 
262. 

ILLINOIS  stumped  by  Chase  in  1858, 
180. 

Impeachment  of  Johnson,  basis  of, 
358;  disapproved  of  by  Chase,  358, 
359;  action  of  Chase  as  president 
during,  359,  360;  its  failure,  360. 

Internal  improvements  supported  by 
Chase  in  Senate,  116. 

JACKSON,  ANDREW,  Chase's  opinion  of, 
in  1829,  9  ;  not  responsible  for  re 
movals,  according  to  Chase,  10 ; 
reconstitutes  the  Supreme  Court, 
324. 

Jay,  John,  his  experience  in  public 
office  compared  to  Chase's,  323. 

Jay,  John,  corresponds  with  Chase,  83, 
422;  on  the  results  of  the  Nebraska 
Bill,  146. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  his  political  prin 
ciples  held  by  Chase,  67. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  suggested  by  Chase 
as  emissary  to  conciliate  public 
opinion  in  England,  215;  issues 
amnesty  proclamation,  334 ;  shows 
little  interest  in  aiding  freedmen, 
336;  fails  to  prevent  passage  of 
Freedman's  Bureau  Act,  337  ;  his 
quarrel  with  Congress,  338  ;  alien 
ates  Chase  by  his  attitude,  339; 
announces  cessation  of  war  in  eleven 
States,  341 ;  nominates  Stanbery  for 
Supreme  Court,  342  ;  agrees  with 
judgments  of  court  on  validity  of 
test  oaths,  346;  pardons  Garland, 
347;  declares  reconstruction  acts 
unconstitutional,  348 ;  objects  to 
case  of  Mississippi  v.  Johnson,  349  ; 
declines  to  interfere  in  case  of 
Georgia  v.  Stanton,  349;  anxious 
for  trial  of  Davis,  352  ;  directs  sur 
render  of  Davis  to  federal  courts, 
352 ;  issues  general  amnesty,  353 ; 
vetoes  act  diminishing  jurisdiction 
of  Supreme  Court,  355;  attempt  to 
impeach,  357-361 ;  removes  Stanton, 
358 ;  refuses  to  obey  tenure  of 
office  act,  358 ;  escapes  conviction, 
360 ;  proposes  to  enforce  use  of 
legal  tender,  391. 


INDEX 


455 


Jones,  Wharton,  his  slaves  aided  by 
Van  Zandt  to  escape,  75 ;  brings 
suits  against  Van  Zandt,  76. 

KANSAS,  struggle  for  possession  of, 
between  North  and  South,  171,  172. 

Kendall,  Amos,  loses  a  fugitive  slave, 
81. 

Kent,  Edward,  Governor  of  Maine, 
refuses  to  surrender  a  "  slave 
stealer,"  76. 

Kent,  James,  compliments  Chase  on 
his  "  Ohio  Laws,"  19. 

Kentucky,  abolitionism  in,  45,  83. 

King,  Edward,  law  partner  of  Chase, 
22. 

King,  Leicester,  early  Ohio  abolition 
ist,  84. 

King,  Preston,  in  House  in  1849,  114  ; 
candidate  for  Republican  nomina 
tion  in  1856,  160. 

King,  Rufus,  on  Chase's  reasons  for 
joining  Liberty  party,  88. 

Know-Nothings,  their  origin  and  early 
success,  152  ;  condemned  by  Chase, 
153;  demand  that  Chase  join  their 
order  to  secure  their  support,  154  ; 
break-up  in  185C,  158. 

LAMON,  WARD  H.,  removed  from  mar- 
shalship  by  Chase,  322. 

Lander,  Frederick  W.,  corresponds 
with  Chase,  214. 

Lands,  public,  regulated  by  Home 
stead  Act,  117  ;  granted  to  railways, 
117. 

Lane  Seminary,  anti-slavery  episode 
at,  39-42. 

Lawrence, ,  in  Matilda  fugitive 

slave  case,  73. 

Leavitt,  Humphrey  H.,  his  decision 
in  Anderson  fugitive  slave  case,  168. 

Leavitt,  Joshua,  corresponds  with 
Chase,  62. 

Legislature  of  Ohio,  elects  Chase 
senator,  104-112  ;  divides  Hamilton 
County  in  1848,  105;  contest  over 
elections  to,  from  Hamilton  County, 
105;  contest  over  organization  of 
House,  105,  106;  organized  by 
Tpwnsheud  and  Morse  at  Chase's 
suggestion,  106,  107;  repeals  Black 
Laws,  107  ;  elects  Chase  to  Senate, 


109,  111 ;  declines  to  reelect  Chase, 
133  ;  urged  by  Chase  to  aid  Kansas, 
172 ;  elects  Chase  senator,  181. 

Lewis,  Samuel,  typical  Western  abo 
litionist,  57 ;  as  Free-Soil  candidate 
voted  against  by  Chase  in  1850,  131. 

Liberal  Republicans  sympathized  with 
by  Chase,  413. 

Liberty  newspapers  aided  by  Chase, 
61,  62. 

Liberty  party,  origin  of,  in  Ohio  in 
years  1835-40,  85,  86 ;  its  vote  in 
1840,  87;  joined  by  Chase,  87-90; 
organized  and  inspired  by  Chase, 
91,  92;  nominates  Birney  in  1843, 
its  platform,  92;  its  vote  in  1844, 93, 
its  refusal  to  vote  for  Clay  justified, 
93,94;  fails  to  grow  in  Ohio,  94 ; 
available  candidates  for,  in  1847, 
95;  at  Buffalo  nominates  Hale,  95, 
96;  desired  by  Chase  to  coalesce 
with  Free-Soilers,  96;  dissolves  in 
Ohio,  97. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  as  a  debater  com 
pared  with  Douglas,  143 ;  his  cam 
paign  against  Douglas  for  the  Sen 
ate,  174,  180;  not  recognized  by 
Chase  as  a  rival  for  Republican 
nomination,  180,  187;  proposed  as 
vice-president,  182 ;  attempts  of 
Chase's  lieutenants  to  win  over,  187, 
188;  receives  solid  support  of  Illi 
nois,  188 ;  receives  support  of  all 
elements  opposed  to  Seward,  193; 
bis  nomination  secured  by  some 
Chase  delegates,  194;  congratulated 
by  Chase,  195;  elected  to  presi 
dency,  196;  plans  to  have  both  Sew 
ard  and  Chase  in  his  cabinet,  197; 
makes  no  offers  for  a  month,  198; 
wishes  Seward  to  oppose  Crittenden 
compromise,  202;  asks  Chase  if  he 
will  accept  the  Treasury  Depart 
ment,  202,  203;  refuses  to  change 
his  mind,  205;  urges  Chase  to  ac 
cept,  206;  his  inaugural,  207;  his 
leadership  not  realized  at  first  by 
cabinet,  207 ;  asks  opinion  of  cabi 
net  on  question  of  relieving  Sum- 
ter,  208,  209;  ignores  Seward' s 
proposal  for  foreign  war,  210;  issues 
proclamation  calling  for  volunteers, 
211;  lacks  confidence  in  Cameron, 


456 


INDEX 


211;  asks  Chase's  aid  in  drafting 
orders,  211,  212 ;  urges  Cisco  to 
hold  office,  217;  appoints  Barney 
collector  of  port  of  New  York,  217; 
seldom  interferes  with  Chase's  pa 
tronage,  219;  approves  Chase's  or 
ders  for  sale  of  confiscated  property, 
225;  approves  Chase's  orders  regu 
lating  trade  with  the  South,  228; 
dreads  heavy  taxation,  237;  annuls 
Fremont's  emancipation  proclama 
tion,  256;  reluctant  to  authorize 
Chase  to  provide  for  negro  refu 
gees,  259,  260;  favors  compensated 
emancipation,  260,  261;  favors  colo 
nization,  261;  annuls  Hunter's 
emancipation  proclamation,  262 ; 
reluctant  to  proclaim  emancipa 
tion,  264,  265;  reads  draft  to  cabi 
net,  265-269;  asks  for  suggestions 
on  final  proclamation,  270 ;  his  in 
difference  to  negro  suffrage  de 
plored  by  Chase,  273 ;  sends  message 
recommending  national  banks,  278; 
not  dissatisfied  with  Chase's  finan 
cial  management,  287  ;  not  intimate 
with  Chase,  290;  reasons  for  his 
attitude,  290,  291 ;  shows  considera 
tion  and  fairness  toward  Chase, 
291 ;  differs  from  Chase  in  his  atti 
tude  on  union  and  slavery,  291,  292; 
harassed  by  Chase's  advice  in  mili 
tary  matters,  292;  his  disregard  of 
cabinet  opinion  complained  of  by 
Chase,  293,  294;  pains  Chase  by  neg 
lecting  his  advice,  294;  refuses  to 
dismiss  McClellan,  294,  295;  criti 
cised  by  Chase,  297-299;  his  forbear 
ance,  299 ;  urged  by  Republican  sena 
tors  to  reconstruct  his  cabinet,  302  ; 
dissatisfaction  of  Chase  with  his 
weakness,  302,  303;  refuses  to  ac 
cept  Seward's  and  Chase's  resigna 
tions,  303;  appears  better  in  affair 
than  the  secretaries,  304;  attempt 
of  Chase  to  coerce  in  matter  of  ap 
pointments  in  Treasury  Department, 
304,  305;  removes  Victor  Smith, 
306;  persuades  Chase  to  withdraw 
his  resignation,  306,  307;  defied  by 
Stanton  in  minor  matters,  307; 
sometimes  ignored  by  Seward,  307 ; 
annoyed  by  Chase's  captiousness, 


308;  obliged  to  keep  his  party  in 
line,  308;  tribute  of  Chase  to  his 
fairness,  310;  temporarily  dis 
credited  in  1S63,  310,311;  declines 
to  call  for  Chase's  resignation  after 
the  Pomeroy  Circular,  312;  enrages 
Chase  by  giving  Blair  a  position  in 
the  army,  314;  renominated  for 
President,  314;  asks  Chase  for 
removal  of  Barney,  315;  tries  to 
harmonize  Chase's  and  Morgan's 
quarrel  over  offices,  316;  accepts 
Chase's  resignation,  317;  Chase's 
comments  on  his  action,  317,  318; 
announces  purpose  to  appoint  Chase 
to  succeed  Taney,  319;  unmoved  by 
opposition  to  Chase,  321 ;  nominates 
Chase  for  Chief  Justice,  321 ;  recon 
stitutes  the  Supreme  Court,  324, 
325;  proposes  circuit  judges,  324; 
declines  to  notice  Taney's  opinion 
in  Merryman  Case,  327 ;  his  theory 
of  reconstruction,  329;  secures  ad 
mission  of  West  Virginia  and  recog 
nition  of  Louisiana,  330 ;  his  amnesty 
proclamation,  330,  331;  criticised 
by  Chase,  331;  vetoes  Congressional 
reconstruction  bill,  332 ;  causes  re 
organization  in  three  States,  332  ; 
assassinated,  333;  his  reputation 
overshadows  other  war  leaders,  430; 
not  appreciated  properly  by  Chase, 
431,432;  his  opinion  of  Chase,  435. 

Lincoln,  Mrs.  Abraham,  her  rivalry 
with  Mrs.  Sprague,  420. 

Ludlow,  Israel,  founder  of  Cincinnati, 
21. 

Ludlow,  James  C.,  father-in-law  of 
Chase,  aids  Lane  Seminary  seceders, 
40. 

Ludlow,  Sarah  B.  D.,  third  wife  of 
Chase,  her  character,  21. 

Lundy,  Benjamin,  his  anti-slavery 
labors  in  Ohio  and  the  West,  36. 

McCARDLE,  Colonel,  case  of,  before 
Supreme  Court,  350;  taken  out  of 
jurisdiction  of  court  by  act  of  Con 
gress,  355. 

McClellan,  George  B.,  early  friend 
ship  of  Chase  for,  213;  repulses 
Chase,  224  ;  attempt  of  Chase  and 
Seward  to  compel  his  dismissal,  294; 


INDEX 


457 


attempts  of  Chase  to  inspire,  295  ; 
loses  confidence  of  Chase,  296;  sup 
ported  by  Seward,  303. 

McCook,  —  — ,  corresponds  with 
Chase,  214;  nominates  Seymour  in 
Democratic  convention  of  18G8,  3G8. 

McCulloch,  Hugh,  as  Secretary  of 
Treasury  begins  redemption  of  legal 
tender  notes,  390. 

McDowell,  General  Irwin,  favored  by 
Chase,  296. 

McLean,  John  T.,  uncle  of  Chase  by 
marriage,  22;  his  decision  in  Van 
Zandt  Case,  76;  candidate  for  Whig 
nomination  in  1840,  8G;  considered 
as  possible  Liberty  candidate,  95; 
considered  as  possible  Free-Soil 
candidate,  98;  candidate  for  Re 
publican  nomination  in  1856,  160, 
161;  his  opinion  in  Rosetta  slave 
case,  166;  candidate  for  Republican 
nomination  in  1860,  189;  his  death, 
324. 

Mahau,  Asa,  resigns  trusteeship  of 
Lane  Seminary,  40 ;  accepts  presi 
dency  of  Oberlin  College,  42. 

Marshall,  John,  Chase's  opinion  of, 
319;  compared  with  Chase,  425. 

Martin,  John,  asks  Chase's  aid  for  his 
mulatto  children,  81. 

Matilda,  fugitive  slave,  defended  by 
Birney  and  Chase,  73. 

Matthews,  Stanley,  studies  law  under 
Chase,  24;  his  part  in  arranging  for 
Chase's  election  to  Senate,  111,  112. 

Medill,  Joseph,  Democratic  candidate 
for  governor  of  Ohio,  155. 

Merryman,  John,  case  of,  326,  327. 

Mexican  war,  its  purpose,  120. 

Miller,  Samuel  F.,  appointed  to  Su 
preme  Court,  325;  dissents  in  Cum- 
mings  Case,  347 ;  dissents  in  Texas  v. 
White,  379;  contradicts  Chase  re 
garding  Hepburn  v.  Griswold,  403. 

Milligan,  L.  P.,  in  case  before  Supreme 
Court,  344-346. 

Mitchell,  ,  corresponds  with 

Chase,  214. 

Molitor, ,  Ohio  editor,  friend  of 

Chase,  62. 

Monfort,  H.,  fined  for  employing  a 
negro  woman,  82. 

Monroe,    James,    studies     law    with 


Chase,  25;  secured  an  office  by  Chase, 
215. 

Morehead,  Charles  S.,  asked  by  Chase 
to  extradite  Margaret  Garner,  167. 

Morgan,  General  C.  H.,  corresponds 
with  Chase,  295. 

Morgan,  Edwin  D.,  insists  on  spoils  of 
New  York  assistant  treasurer's 
office,  315;  his  dealings  with  Chase 
and  Lincoln,  316. 

Morgan,  John,  anti-slavery  instructor, 
dismissed  from  Lane  Seminary,  40; 
accepts  professorship  in  Oberlin  Col 
lege,  42. 

Morris,  Thomas,  counsel  for  Van 
Zandt,  76  ;  first  abolitionist  senator, 
85. 

Morse,  J.  F.,  elected  to  Ohio  legisla 
ture  in  1848,  105,  106;  prefers  Gid- 
dings  to  Chase  for  senator,  108; 
influenced  by  Chase  in  Hamilton 
County  question,  110;  carries  bill 
for  repeal  of  Black  Laws,  110. 

NEBRASKA  BILL,  struggle  over,  133- 
146 ;  reasons  for  its  introduction, 
133;  leaders  in  debate  over,  134;  bill 
reshaped  to  suit  South,  134,  135; 
reasons  for  and  against  the  bill, 
136;  attacked  in  appeal  of  Indepen 
dent  Democrats,  138-141;  passed, 
145, 146;  results  predicted  by  Chase, 
147. 

Needham,  Edgar,  abolitionist  in  Ken 
tucky,  83. 

Negroes,  free,  origin  of,  in  Ohio,  15, 
29 ;  number  of,  29 ;  laws  regulating, 
30;  buy  their  freedom,  31;  mobs 
against,  in  Cincinnati,  31 ;  efforts  of 
Lane  Seminary  students  to  benefit, 
40;  report  on  their  condition,  44; 
give  Chase  a  silver  pitcher,  82; 
Black  Laws  concerning,  repealed, 
110. 

Nelson,  Judge  Samuel,  on  Supreme 
bench  during  war,  325;  dissents  in 
case  of  Veazie  Bank  v.  Fenno,  387. 

Nelson,  General  W.,  efforts  of  Chase 
to  assist,  213. 

New  Mexico,  status  of  slavery  in,  120. 

New  York,  efforts  of  Chase  to  obtain 
support  in,  180;  corruption  of 
Weed's  politics  in,  184-187. 


458 


INDEX 


Nichols,  Eli,  Chase's  agent  in  election 
of  1849,  112. 

Nicolay,  John  G. ,  marshal  of  Supreme 
Court,  323. 

North,  causes  for  anti-slavery  move 
ment  in,  35,  36;  humanitarian 
advance  in,  since  colonial  times, 
contrasted  with  backwardness  of 
South,  121  ;  members  of,  in  Con 
gress  not  combined  against  slavery, 
123;  aroused  by  the  passage  of  the 
Nebraska  act,  146;  passes  personal 
liberty  laws  to  impede  slave-catch 
ing,  163,  164;  carried  by  Republi 
cans  in  1860,  196;  apparently  ready 
to  permit  secession,  199,  200 ;  roused 
by  fall  of  Sumter,  211. 

Northwest,  historical  sketch  of,  by 
Chase,  19,  20;  peculiarities  of  abo 
litionism  in,  37,  56,  57. 

OBEELIN  COLLEGE,  foundation  of,  41 ; 
receives  Lane  Seminary  seceders, 
42;  political  influence  of,  42,  43. 

Ohio,  early  religious  life  in,  4;  pro 
sperity  of  southern  part  of,  14  ;  early 
settlers  of,  14,  15,  28;  trade  com 
munications  in,  15,  16;  laws  of, 
codified  by  Chase,  19;  rivalry  in, 
between  northern  and  southern 
parts,  29  ;  Black  Laws  in,  30,  31 ; 
slavery  prohibited  in,  33,  34  ;  early 
anti-slavery  societies  in,  35,  36; 
legislature  of,  passes  resolutions 
favoring  emancipation,  36;  begin 
ning  of  abolitionism  in,  36-39;  for 
mation  of  State  Anti-Slavery  Society 
in,  44 ;  courts  of,  return  fugitive 
slaves  and  convict  rescuers,  73-75, 
80,81;  early  abolitionists  in,  politics 
in,  84,  86;  Liberty  party  vote  in,  93, 
94;  Free-Territory  Convention  in, 
96,  97 ;  senatorial  struggle  in,  104- 
112;  efforts  of  Chase  to  benefit,  as 
senator,  116;  fortunes  of  Free-Soil 
party  in,  131,  132;  carried  by  anti- 
Nebraska  movement,  151;  campaign 
of  Chase  in,  for  governor,  154-156; 
important  effect  of  its  being  carried 
by  Republicans,  156;  economic  con 
dition  under  Chase's  administra 
tion,  156;  political  management  in, 
by  Chase,  157;  principal  features  of 


Chase's  administration,  158;  corrup 
tion  in  treasurer's  office,  161,  162; 
again  carried  by  Republicans,  162, 
163;  fugitive  slave  cases  in,  during 
Chase's  administration,  165-170;  its 
courts  conflict  with  federal  courts, 
166,  167,  169,  170;  failure  of  Chase 
to  control  Republican  delegates  in, 
189, 192, 193;  recommends  Lincoln's 
renomination,  314;  ratifies  Fifteenth 
Amendment  through  Chase's  influ 
ence,  372. 

Opdyke,  George,  supports  Chase  for 
Republican  nomination  in  1860, 191 ; 
abandons  Chase  for  Lincoln,  193; 
aids  Chase's  financial  measures,  222; 
urges  issue  of  legal  tender,  250; 
tries  to  organize  national  banks, 
280. 

Ordinance  of  1787,  Chase's  history  of, 
19;  prescribes  return  of  fugitive 
slaves,  33;  prohibits  slavery,  34; 
held  by  Chase  to  invalidate  Fugi 
tive  Slave  Act,  71;  Chase's  use  of, 
in  Van  Zandt  argument,  77;  ap 
pealed  to  by  Chase,  123. 

PACIFIC  RAILROAD,  plan  to  construct, 
favored  by  Chase,  118. 

Parish,  Francis  D.,  convicted  in  a 
fugitive  slave  case,  80. 

Parker,  Theodore,  letter  of  Chase  to, 
on  his  political  principles,  56. 

Parsons,  Richard  C.,  secured  a  po 
sition  by  Chase,  215;  marshal  of 
Supreme  Court,  322;  obliged  to  re 
sign,  323. 

Paul,  Dr.,  Chase's  letter  to,  on  Know- 
Nothing  party,  133, 134. 

Payne,  Henry  B.,  defeated  by  Chase 
for  governor,  162. 

Peace  Conference  in  1860  fails  to  se 
cure  a  compromise,  204. 

Pendleton,  George  H.,  candidate  for 
Democratic  nomination  in  1868,  367, 
368. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  his  true  place  in  the 
abolition  movement,  37,  55  ;  attacks 
Chase  for  his  attitude  in  Garner  case, 
167  ;  proposes  abolition  of  Supreme 
Court,  346. 

Pierce,  Edward  L. ,  studies  law  under 
Chase,  24  ;  on  Chase's  self-interest, 


INDEX 


459 


25  ;  on  Chase's  reasons  for  joining 
Liberty  party,  87  ;  tells  Chase  his 
chances  for  nomination  in  1856  are 
hopeless,  160  ;  works  for  Chase  in 
I860,  180  ;  has  to  vote  for  Seward  in 
convention,  191  ;  visits  North  Caro 
lina  in  interests  of  freedruen,  259;  his 
friendship  with  Chase,  421. 

Pierce,  Franklin,  elected  President, 
adopts  a  pro-slavery  policy,  132. 

Polk,  James  K.,  nominated  for  Presi 
dent  as  an  annexationist,  92,  93. 

Pomeroy,  Samuel  C.,  issues  circular 
proposing  Chase  for  President,  312. 

Pope,  General  John,  sympathy  of 
Chase  with,  296. 

Popular  sovereignty,  reasons  for  popu 
larity  of  the  doctrine,  136. 

Powers,  Hiram,  purchase  of  his  statue 
of  America  urged  by  Chase,  119. 

Price,  John,  fugitive  slave  rescued  by 
mob  in  Oberliu,  169. 

Pugh,  George,  law  student  under 
Chase,  24  ;  Democratic  contestant 
for  seat  in  Ohio  legislature,  105, 
106  ;  gains  seat  through  Chase's  in 
fluence,  109,  110,  111  ;  elected  sena 
tor  in  1854, 133  ;  counsel  for  slave- 
catchers  in  Anderson  case,  168  ;  calls 
coercion  impossible,  199. 

QUINCY,  EDMUND,  calls  Chase  a  politi 
cal  huckster,  55. 

RALSTON,  JANET,  mother  of  S.  P. 
Chase,  2  ;  struggles  to  give  her  chil 
dren  an  education,  5. 

Randolph,  John,  Chase's  opinion  of, 
in  1829,  10. 

Rankin,  Dr.  John,  early  abolitionist  in 
Ohio,  38. 

Read,  Judge,  renders  decision  return 
ing  a  fugitive  slave,  and  later  is 
turned  out  of  office  by  Free-Soilers, 
80. 

Reconstruction,  problem  of,  329 ;  Lin 
coln's  theory  of,  329,330;  Chase's 
opposing  view  of,  330 ;  begun  in 
Louisiana,  330 ;  outlined  in  amnesty 
proclamation,  330,  331  ;  Lincoln's 
veto  of  reconstruction  bill,  332 ; 
process  continues  in  two  States, 
332  ;  renewed  by  Johnson's  amnesty 


proclamation,  334  ;  process  of,  336  ; 
different  views  of  Congress  and 
Johnson  regarding,  338  ;  passage  of 
Civil  Rights  Act,  340;  reconstruc 
tion  acts  of  1867,  341,  342;  refusal 
of  Supreme  Court  to  consider  cases 
involving,  348-350;  completed  in  the 
South,  357;  upheld  in  Texas  v.  White, 
378  ;  and  in  White  v.  Hart,  380. 
Republican  party,  beginnings  of,  146  ; 
formation  of,  predicted  by  Chase, 
147  ;  its  origin  in  Anti-Nebraska  ac 
tion,  150,  151 ;  elects  a  majority  of 
congressmen,  151  ;  not  regarded  by 
Chase  as  permanent,  152  ;  infected 
with  Know-Nothingism,  153;  nomi 
nates  Chase  for  governor  in  Ohio, 
154,  155;  suffers  reaction  in  1855, 
156 ;  gains  by  disruption  of  Know- 
Nothing  party,  159  ;  efforts  of  Chase 
to  secure  its  nomination  for  Presi 
dent,  159-161  ;  holds  preliminary 
convention  at  Pittsburg,  160  ;  nomi 
nates  Fremont,  161 ;  carries  Ohio  in 
1857,  162  ;  place  held  by  Chase  in, 
163 ;  vacillates  regarding  Kansas, 
173;  movement  in,  to  support  Doug 
las,  174,  180  ;  gains  ground  in  1858, 
178  ;  canvass  for  presidential  nomi 
nation  in,  178-190 ;  not  consolidated 
in  1860,  183  ;  different  elements  in, 
183;  corrupt  elements  of,  190;  holds 
convention  at  Chicago,  190;  nomi 
nates  Lincoln,  191-194  ;  reasons  why 
it  fails  to  nominate  Chase,  195 ; 
elects  Lincoln,  196  ;  its  platform, 
198 ;  regards  secession  as  a  trick, 
198  ;  ready  to  compromise  in  1860, 
201  ;  refuses  to  pass  Crittenden 
compromise,  204  ;  not  anti-slavery 
in  1861,  253  ;  different  elements  of, 
253,  254  ;  supported  by  war  Demo 
crats,  255  ;  dissatisfaction  in,  with 
Lincoln  and  Seward,  302,  310  ;  ques 
tion  of  nomination  in  1864,  308-314 , 
movement  in,  for  Chase,  309  ;  re- 
nominates  Lincoln,  314  ;  campaign 
of  1864,  320;  opposition  in,  to 
Chase's  appointment  as  chief  jus 
tice,  321  ;  desire  of  Chase  for  nomi 
nation  in  1868,  361-363  ;  nominates 
Grant,  363;  abandoned  by  Chase, 
365  ;  loses  ground  in  country,  369  ; 


460 


INDEX 


leaders  of,  as  a  rule ,  oppose  Chase, 
422. 

Riddle,  A.  G.,  on  the  election  of  Chase 
to  Senate,  112  ;  his  skill  m  Ober- 
lin  rescue  case,  170 ;  urges  Chase 
upon  Lincoln  for  chief  justiceship, 
321. 

Robinson,  Charles,  free-state  gover 
nor  of  Kansas,  visits  Chase,  172 ; 
recommends  Brown  to  Chase,  174  ; 
on  Chase's  chances  for  nomination, 
180  ;  on  Weed's  corruption,  184. 

Root,  J.  P.,  in  House  in  1849,  114. 

Rosecrans,  General  W.  S.,  corresponds 
with  Chase,  297. 

Rosetta,  fugitive  slave,  contended  for 
by  Ohio  and  federal  courts,  165. 

Rousseau,  General  L.  H.,  congratu 
lated  by  Chase,  297. 

SAXTON,  GENERAL  RUFUS,  appointed 
military  governor  of  South  Carolina, 
aids  negro  refugees,  2GO. 

Schenck,  Robert  C.,  on  necessity  for 
curbing  power  of  Supreme  Court, 
355. 

Schuckers,  J.  W.,  on  Chase's  reasons 
for  joining  Liberty  party  in  1841, 
87. 

Scott,  General  Winfield,  advises 
against  provisioning  Sumter,  208. 

Secession,  defied  by  Chase  in  1850, 
128  ;  threatened  in  I860,  198  ;  possi 
ble  methods  of  meeting,  199 ;  at 
first  meets  no  opposition,  199  ;  at 
tempts  to  avoid,  by  compromise, 
201-205  ;  Lincoln's  attitude  on, 
205. 

Senate  of  the  United  States,  regards 
Chase  as  insignificant,  112 ;  anti- 
slavery  men  in,  113,  114;  excludes 
Chase  and  others  from  committees, 
114,  115  ;  share  in  business  of,  taken 
by  Chase,  116-119;  debates  Clay's 
Compromise  resolutions,  124-129 ; 
controlled  by  junction  of  Webster 
with  the  South,  124  ;  Chase's  speech 
in,  on  compromise,  125-128  ;  defeats 
Chase's  motion  to  exclude  slavery 
from  New  Mexico,  129  ;  debates  Ne 
braska  Bill,  142-145 ;  rejects  Chase's 
amendments,  144  ;  passes  the  bill, 
145,  146  ;  summary  of  Chase's  ca 


reer   in,   148 ;    in   impeachment   of 
Johnson,  357-361. 

Seward,  William  H.,  as  governor  of 
New  York,  refuses  to  extradite  a 
"  slave-stealer,"  76  ;  counsel  in  Van 
Zandt  Case,,  76 ;  protests  against 
Chase's  bitterness  toward  Whigs, 
80 ;  plan  to  nominate,  protested 
against  by  Birney,  92  ;  suggested 
as  Liberty  candidate  in  1847,  95  ; 
Chase's  opinion  of,  as  a  senator, 
113  ;  excluded  from  Senate  commit 
tees,  115  ;  for  the  Whig  party  first, 
120  ;  not  in  sympathy  with  Chase, 
124,  125  ;  his  political  prestige,  125; 
Douglas's  opinion  of,  134;  his  minor 
part  in  Nebraska  debate,  145  ;  does 
not  seek  Republican  nomination  in 
1856,  160  ;  his  caution,  176  ;  a  better 
party  leader  than  Chase,  177  ;  his 
"  irrepressible  conflict  "  speech, 
180  ;  elements  of  weakness  in  his 
candidacy  in  1860,  183,  184  ;  dam 
aged  by  his  corrupt  support,  184; 
receives  solid  support  of  New  York, 
188  ;  apparently  sure  of  nomination, 
191  ;  defeated  by  coalition,  193, 194; 
desired  by  Lincoln  in  his  cabinet, 
197,  200;  acts  as  leader  in  discussing 
compromises,  200,  201  ;  refuses  to 
accept  Crittenden  compromise,  202; 
follows  Lincoln's  wish,  202  ;  urged 
by  Chase  not  to  make  concessions, 
203  ;  assumes  attitude  of  leader  of 
administration,  207  ;  on  good  terms 
with  Chase,  207  ;  opposes  attempt 
to  relieve  Sumter,  209  ;  submits  his 
foreign  policy  to  Lincoln,  210;  ready 
to  favor  action  against  slavery,  265 ; 
suggests  modifications  of  Emancipa 
tion  Proclamation,  268,  269;  his  per 
sonal  intimacy  witli  Lincoln  envied 
by  Chase,  290 ;  at  first  a  rival,  later 
on  good  terms  with  Chase,  301, 302; 
dissatisfaction  of  radicals  with,  302; 
agrees  with  Chase  to  resign  from 
cabinet,  302 ;  Lincoln's  principal 
supporter,  303;  resumes  office,  303  ; 
eager  for  Lincoln's  protection,  304 ; 
sometimes  assumes  undue  responsi 
bility,  307  ;  loses  reputation  under 
Johnson,  362  ;  morally  inferior  to 
Chase,  429,  431,  432. 


INDEX 


461 


Seymour,  Horatio,  declines  to  be 
Democratic  candidate,  367  ;  nomi 
nated  by  a  stampede,  3G8. 

Sherman,  Judge  Charles,  obliged  to 
resign,  323. 

Sherman,  John,  prefers  Sevvard  to 
Chase  in  I860,  194. 

Sherman,  W.  T.,  letters  of  Chase  to, 
on  military  matters,  213. 

Shields,  General  James,  asks  Chase 
to  confer  on  his  behalf  with  Lincoln, 
295. 

Shipherd,  John  J.,  founds  Oberlin 
College,  41  ;  insists  on  engaging  in 
structors  dismissed  from  Lane  Sem 
inary  and  on  opening  college  to 
colored  students,  41,  42. 

Sickles,  Daniel,  complains  of  failure 
of  efforts  to  prevent  trade  with 
South,  229 ;  has  controversy  with 
Chase  as  federal  judge,  343;  re 
moved  by  Johnson,  344. 

Skinner,  Ralston,  studies  law  under 
Chase,  24. 

Slavery,  Chase's  argument  against  its 
legality,  G3-73  ;  its  status  under  the 
Constitution,  63;  question  of  its 
moral  good  or  ill,  64  ;  Giddings's 
doctrine  of  its  uncoiistitutionality, 
6G  ;  real  attitude  of  Constitution  on, 
69  ;  permitted  by  Congress  south  of 
Ohio,  69  ;  struggle  over,  in  the  Ter 
ritories  begins,  103, 120;  keeps  South 
backward  in  civilization,  121  ;  new 
attitude  of  South  toward,  122,  123  ; 
not  in  question  in  1861,  253;  inten 
tion  of  attacking,  disclaimed,  254 ; 
Lincoln's  plans  for  emancipation, 
256;  abolished  in  Territories,  257, 
258 ;  attempt  of  Hunter  to  abolish, 
in  coast  States,  262,  263. 

Slaves,  fugitive,  in  Ohio,  29,  32 ; 
helped  by  Underground  Railroad, 
32  ;  reclaimed  in  Ohio,  33  ;  Chase's 
efforts  in  behalf  of,  73-83;  appeal  to 
Chase  for  all  kinds  of  help,  81,  82  ; 
in  Civil  War,  status  of,  255,  256; 
take  refuge  in  Union  lines,  258 ;  ex 
pected  to  rise  if  emancipated,  263, 
264  ;  freed  by  Lincoln's  Emancipa 
tion  Proclamation,  270. 

Smith,  Eliza  Ann,  second  wife  of 
Chase.  21. 


Smith,  Gerrit,  candidate  for  Liberty 
nomination  in  1847,  95  ;  signs  Appeal 
of  Independent  Democrats,  139. 

Smith,  Victor,  appointed  to  office  at 
Chase's  suggestion,  305  j  commits 
indiscretions  as  collector  at  Puget 
Sound,  305,  306 ;  removed  by  Lin 
coln,  306;  less  disturbed  than  Chase, 
307. 

Smith,  W.  B.,  corresponds  with  Chase, 
214. 

Soule,  Pierre,  his  relations  with  Chase, 
148. 

South,  gradual  change  of  its  opinion 
regarding  slavery,  35  ;  reasons  for 
its  desire  to  suppress  abolitionists, 
38;  driven  by  abolitionists'  attacks 
into  defense  of  slavery,  64  ;  enraged 
at  failure  to  secure  California,  120; 
continues  brutality  of  eighteenth 
century  into  the  nineteenth,  121  ; 
considers  itself  aggrieved  by  atti 
tude  of  North  toward  District  of 
Columbia  and  Fugitive  Slave  Law, 
122;  its  real  reasons  for  demanding 
extension  of  slavery,  122,  123;  gains 
by  Compromise  of  1850,  130 ;  pro 
poses  to  gain  by  Nebraska  Bill,  133  ; 
wishes  explicit  repeal  of  Missouri 
Compromise,  135  ;  plans  secession, 
198 ;  secedes,  202,  203  ;  unaffected 
by  Emancipation  Proclamation,  270; 
political  and  economic  condition 
after  war,  333,  334  ;  elements  of  re 
construction  in,  334,  335  ;  cessation 
of  war  in,  proclaimed  by  Johnson,  • 
341  ;  beginnings  of  federal  courts  in, 
343,  344  ;  completion  of  reconstruc 
tion  in,  357  ;  suppression  of  negro 
vote  in,  381. 

Southgate,  H.  H.,  prevents  nomination 
of  Chase  for  state  senator  in  1840,  on 
anti-slavery  grounds,  88. 

Spaulding,  Elbridge  G.,  urges  issue  of 
legal  tender  notes,  246,  247. 

Spoils  system,  introduction  of,  ob 
served  by  Chase,  9  ;  under  Lincoln's 
administration,  216-219,  304-306, 
315,  316  ;  refusal  of  Chase  to  em 
ploy,  311. 

Spooner,  Lysander,  his  doctrine  as  to 
relation  of  Constitution  and  slavery, 
66. 


462 


INDEX 


Sprague,  Kate  Chase,  her  birth,  21; 
marriage  to  Senator  Sprague,  419; 
sketch  of  her  character  and  ambi 
tions,  420. 

Stanbery,  Henry,  his  nomination  to 
Supreme  Court  rejected  by  Senate, 
342. 

Stanford,  Leland,  delegate  to  Repub 
lican  convention  of  I860,  188. 
Stanton,   Benjamin,   suggests  a  case 
to  test  constitutionality  of  slavery, 
82. 

Stanton,  Edwin  M.,  authorizes  enlist 
ment  of  negroes,  263  ;  fails  to  enjoy 
Lincoln's  jokes,  2GG  ;  upbraided  by 
Chase  for  wastefulness,  293;  his 
efficiency  not  understood  by  Chase, 
300;  Chase's  opinion  of,  301  ;  defies 
Lincoln  in  small  matters,  307  ;  ex 
pected  by  Chase  to  resign  when  he 
does,  317  ;  thought  by  Chase  to  be  a 
candidate  to  succeed  Taney,  320; 
suit  of  Georgia  against,  349  ;  issues 
writs  for  arrest  of  leading  Con 
federates,  352  ;  removed  from  office 
by  Johnson,  358 ;  named  for  Su 
preme  Court,  but  dies,  400  ;  com 
pared  with  Chase,  430. 
Stanton,  H.  B.,  at  organization  of 
Ohio  Anti-Slavery  Society,  44;  sug 
gests  J.  P.  Hale  as  Liberty  candi 
date  in  1847,  95;  corresponds  with 
Chase,  98  ;  on  Weed's  corrupt  man 
agement,  185. 

4  Stevens,  Thaddeus,  urged  by  Chase  to 
make  no  concessions,  203;  leads 
House,  234;  exceeds  Chase's  plans 
for  taxation,  239;  opposes  Chase's 
plan  for  national  banks,  277;  dis 
gusted  at  Chase's  action  in  Johnson 
impeachment,  3P>0;  his  reasons  for 
advocating  negro  suffrage,  370; 
compared  with  Chase,  430. 
Stewart,  Philo  P.,  founds  Oberlin  Col 

lege,  41. 

Story,  Joseph,  compliments  Chase  on 
his  "Ohio  Laws,"   19;   on  Chase 
Van  Zandt  argument,  77. 
Strong,  William,  appointed  to  Supreme 
Court,  399  ;  known  to  be  a  supporte 
of  the  constitutionality  of  legal  ten 
der,   401;    gives  decision   in  Lega 
Tender  Cases,  404. 


uffrage,  negro.     See  Freedmen. 

umner,  Charles,  compared  with 
Western  abolitionists,  57  ;  corre 
sponds  with  Chase,  98 ;  predicts 
Chase's  success  in  Senate,  113; 
elected  to  Senate,  114  ;  not  a  parlia 
mentarian,  119 ;  Douglas's  opinion 
of,  134 ;  signs  Appeal  of  Independent 
Democrats,  138  ;  less  prominent  than 
Chase,  17G;  disabled  by  Brooks,  180; 
urges  appointment  of  Chase  as  chief 
justice,  321 ;  his  reasons  for  advo 
cating  negro  suffrage,  370  ;  Chase's 
only  intimate  friend  among  leaders, 
422;  compared  with  Chase,  430. 

umter,  Fort,  question  of  its  relief, 
208-211 ;  successive  consultations  of 
cabinet  on,  208,  210. 

upreme  Court,  decides  Prigg  Case, 
1G ;  decides  against  Chase  in  Van 
Zandt  Case,  7G;  Chase's  early  opin 
ion  of,  319;  patronage  of,  322,  323; 
its  depressed  condition  during  war, 

323,  324 ;    its    political    character 
changed  by  Lincoln's  appointments, 

324,  325  ;  continues  conservative  tra 
ditions,  325 ;  in  case  of  New  York  v. 
Commissioners,  326  ;  decides  Prize 
Cases,  326 ;  in  Vallandigham  Case, 
327,  328  ;  declines  to  pass  on  cases 
involving  status  of   seceded  States, 
328  ;   its  numbers  reduced  by  Con 
gress,  342 ;   decides  Milligan  Case, 
344-346;    gains    unpopularity,  346; 
in  Cummings  v.  Missouri,  346,  347 ; 
in  Garland  Case,  347,  348  ;  declines 
to  consider  reconstruction   in  Mis 
sissippi  v.  Johnson,  348,  349;    de 
clines  to  consider  Georgia  v.  Stanton, 
349, 350;  hears  McCardle  Case,  350; 
refuses  to  consider  treason    cases, 
351-353;  in  danger  of  attack  from 
Congress,  354  ;  its  jurisdiction   di 
minished  by  Congress,  355  ;  admits 
a  negro  to  bar,  373  ;  decides  to  en 
force  anti-bellum  slave  contracts  in 
White  v.  Hart,  373;   gives  conflict 
ing  decisions  as  to  beginning  and 
end  of  war,  374;  on  the  Confederate 
government,  375;   decides  cases  on 
amnesty  and  confiscation  acts,  376; 
in  Tarbeirs  Case,  377,  378;  in  Texas 
v.    White     announces    doctrine    of 


INDEX 


463 


indestructible  Union,  378-380;  in 
White  v.  Hart  on  reconstruction, 
380 ;  in  Slaughter-house  Cases 
restricts  bearing  of  anti-slavery 
amendments,  381-383;  enforces  war 
taxes,  385;  in  License  Tax  Cases, 
386  ;  in  Veazie  Bank  Case  supports 
tax  on  state  bank  notes,  38G,  387; 
in  three  cases  limits  use  of  legal 
tender,  393  ;  in  Hepburn  v.  Grisivold 
holds  legal  tender  unconstitutional, 
394-397 ;  this  decision  criticised, 

398,  399;    reorganized    by    Grant, 

399,  401  ;  struggle  in,  between  new 
members  and  old  over  reconsidera 
tion  of  legal  tender  question,  402, 
403  ;  in  Legal  Tender  Cases  reverses 
decision,  404-408;  discussion  of  its 
decision,  408-410  ;  damaged  in  pre 
stige,  412 ;   upholds  income  tax  in 
Collector  v.  Day,  388. 

Swan,  Joseph  W.,  refused  reelection 
by  Republicans  on  anti-slavery 
grounds,  170. 

Swayne,  Noah  H.,  wishes  to  succeed 
Taney,  320;  appointed  to  Supreme 
Court,  325;  dissents  in  Cummings 
Case,  347;  dissents  in  Texas  v.  White, 
379;  dissents  in  Slaughter-House 
Cases,  381. 

TANEY,  ROGER  B.,  said  to  have  been 
influenced  by  Chase's  argument  in 
Morse  telegraph  case,  2G;  dies  in 
office,  320,  324;  protests  against 
suspension  of  habeas  corpus  in 
Merry  man  Case,  32G,  327. 

Taylor,  J.  W.,  Ohio  editor,  studies 
law  with  Chase,  62. 

Taylor,  Zachary,  nominated  by  Whigs 
for  President,  96;  his  policy  toward 
California  and  New  Mexico  angers 
South,  120;  effect  of  his  death  on 
the  territorial  struggle,  128. 

Texas,  question  of  its  annexation  in 
campaign  of  1844,  92-94;  question 
of  responsibility  of  Liberty  party 
for  its  annexation,  93;  question  of 
its  boundary  in  1850,  126;  necessity 
of  reconstruction  in,  339;  in  case  of 
Texas  v.  While,  379. 

Thome,  J.  A.,  anti-slavery  leader  at 
Lane  Seminary,  39. 


Tilden,  Samuel  J.,  favors  a  new  policy 
for  Democratic  party,  365. 

Townshend,  Mary,  asks  Chase's  aid  in 
purchasing  freedom  for  her  family, 
81. 

Townshend,  Norton,  elected  to  Ohio 
legislature  in  1848,  105,  106;  favors 
Chase  for  senator,  108  ;  his  course 
in  struggle  of  1849  dictated  by 
Chase,  110,  111. 

Treasury  Department,  Chase  ap 
pointed  to,  206;  its  management 
learned  by  Chase,  207;  demoralized 
in  1860,  216;  new  officials  in,  ap 
pointed  by  Chase,  216-219;  diffi 
culties  over  spoils  in,  217,  218;  new 
administration  of,  by  Chase,  220; 
takes  charge  of  confiscated  property  ? 
224,225;  supervises  prohibition  of 
trade  with  enemy,  225-229. 

Trent  affair,  Chase's  attitude  in,  215. 

Trimble,  Allen,  Whig  and  Know-No- 
thing  candidate  for  governor  of 
Ohio,  155. 

Trollope,  Mrs.,  her  description  of  Cin 
cinnati  not  adequate,  16. 

Tuck,  Amos,  in  House  in  1849,  114. 

Turner,  Elizabeth,  released  by  Chase's 
decision  against  Maryland  emanci 
pation  act,  351. 

Tyler,  John,  Chase's  opinion  of,  87. 

UNDERGROUND  RAILROAD,  its  begin 
nings,  32,  39  ;  its  operation,  75. 

Underwood,  John  C.,  holds  federal 
courts  in  Virginia,  343  ;  admits 
Davis  to  bail,  353. 

VALLANDIGHAM,  CLEMENT  L.,  counsel 
for  slave-catchers,  168  ;  predicts 
Southern  occupancy  of  Washington 
in  1860,  199  ;  his  sentence  by  court- 
martial  disapproved  of  by  Chase, 
300  ;  case  of,  before  the  Supreme 
Court,  327 ;  favors  nomination  of 
Chase  in  1868,  367. 

Van  Bur  en,  John,  acts  as  Chase's 
agent  in  1868,  367. 

Van  Buren,  Martin,  low  opinion  re 
garding,  held  by  Chase  in  1829,  9  ; 
opposed  by  Chase  in  1840,  87  ;  leads 
bolt  of  Barnburners,  96 ;  his  name 
presented  to  Buffalo  convention  by 


464 


INDEX 


Butler,  100;  nominated  for  Presi 
dent,  101 ;  his  vote  in  1848,  102. 
Van  Zandt,  John,  keeps  station  of 
Underground  Railroad,  75 ;  sued 
for  aiding  runaway  slaves,  76 ;  de 
fended  by  Chase  and  others,  but 
convicted,  76. 

WADE,  BENJAMIN  F.,  begins  public 
career  as  anti-slavery  state  senator, 
84  ;  elected  to  United  States  Senate, 
113  ;  a  rival  of  Chase,  114  ;  supports 
Homestead  Bill,  117  ;  not  fitted  to 
lead  anti-slavery  men  in  Senate,  119, 
148  ;  attacks  Nebraska  Bill,  145 ; 
comments  on  its  passage,  146 ;  pre 
vents  Chase  from  receiving  whole 
support  of  Ohio  in  Republican  con 
vention,  189;  fears  of  Chase's  friends 
that  he  may  sweep  convention,  193, 
194  ;  leads  radicals  in  Senate,  234 ; 
effort  of  Chase  to  placate,  309. 

Wade,  Edward,  signs  Appeal  of  Inde 
pendent  Democrats,  138. 

Walker,  I.  P.,  in  Nebraska  debate, 
145. 

Walker,  Robert  J.,  the  last  efficient 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  before 
Chase,  216;  brings  suit  of  Mississippi 
v.  Johnson,  348. 

Walker,  Timothy,  law  partner  of 
Chase,  22. 

Walley,  Samuel  H.,  favors  creation  of 
national  banks,  278. 

War  of  Rebellion,  begun,  211  ;  call  for 
volunteers,  211,  212;  early  share  of 
Chase  in  organizing  army,  212-217  ; 
the  blockade,  226  ;  attempts  to  pre 
vent  internal  trade,  226-229 ;  at 
tempts  of  Chase  to  suggest  move 
ments  in,  294-297. 

Warden,  Robert  B.,  named  by  Chase 
to  be  his  biographer,  414,  424. 

Washington,  Daniel,  fugitive  slave  of 
Amos  Kendall,  81. 

Washington,  George,  unable  to  re 
cover  a  fugitive  slave  in  1796,  33. 

Washington,  social  life  in,  7-9. 

Watrous,  Charles,  delegate  to  Repub 
lican  convention  of  1860,  188. 

Watson,  Samuel,  fugitive  slave  de 
fended  by  Chase,  80. 

Wayne,  Judge  James  M.,  his  death, 


325  ;  supposed  to  have  the  deciding 
voice  in  the  Supreme  Court,  354. 

Webster,  Daniel,  anecdote  of,  by 
Chase,  8  ;  his  legal  power  described 
by  Chase,  10  ;  indignation  of  Chase 
at  his  Seventh  of  March  speech, 
124;  his  arguments  assailed  by 
Chase,  127  ;  influenced  by  business 
men,  129  ;  compared  to  Chase,  415. 

Weed,  Thurlow,  Seward's  manager  in 
politics,  125  ;  influences  Republican 
party  policy,  177  ;  his  corrupt  man 
agement  in  New  York,  184-187  ;  fa 
vors  compromise  in  1860,  201 ;  en 
raged  at  Lincoln's  giving  Chase  the 
Treasury  Department,  205;  joins 
with  Greeley  to  recommend  a  man 
for  office,  219  ;  sounds  Chase  on  his 
attitude  toward  Seward,  302. 

Weld,  Theodore  D.,  abolitionist  in 
structor  in  Lane  Seminary,  39  ;  lec 
tures  at  Oberlin,  42  ;  aids  in  forming 
Ohio  Anti-Slavery  Society,  44. 

Welles,  Gideon,  on  Chase's  aversion 
to  the  name  abolitionist,  55;  urges 
relief  of  Fort  Sumter,  210. 

Wells,  Horace,  law  partner  of  Chase, 
23. 

Welsh,  William,  opposes  issue  of  legal 
tender,  251. 

Western  Reserve  becomes  strongly 
anti-slavery,  43. 

Western  Reserve  College,  early  anti- 
slavery  centre,  42,  43. 

Whig  party  elects  Harrison,  86,  87  ; 
reasons  for  Chase's  abandonment 
of,  87-90  ;  distrusted  and  hated  by 
Chase,  90 ;  loses  Liberty  votes  and 
is  defeated  in  1844,  93  ;  reasons  why 
attacked  by  Liberty  party,  94  ;  nomi 
nates  Taylor,  96  ;  in  Ohio  senatorial 
election,  104-112  ;  votes  against  re 
peal  of  Black  La\vs,107 ;  votes  against 
Chase,  and  refuses  to  vote  for  Gid- 
dings,  108,  109  ;  defeated  in  presi 
dential  election  of  1852, 132  ;  its  dis 
solution  foreseen,  132, 149;  members 
of,  in  Ohio  nominate  a  ticket  in 
1855,  155. 

Wilmot,  David,  in  House  in  1849,  114. 

Wilson,  Henry,  a  Know-Nothing,  176. 

Wirt,  William,  receives  Chase  in  his 
law  office,  7,  11. 


INDEX 


465 


Wise,  Henry  A.,  threatens,  as  gover 
nor  of  Virginia,  to  pursue  John 
Brown  raiders  into  Ohio,  175. 

Wood,  General  Thomas  J.,  corresponds 
with  Chase,  215. 

Wright,  Elizur,  anti-slavery  professor 


at  Western  Reserve  College,  43; 
praises  Lincoln's  inaugural  address, 
207  ;  suggests  arming  the  negroes, 
261. 

Wright,  John  C.,  suggested  as  possible 
Liberty  candidate,  95. 


ELECTROTYPED  AND  PRINTED 
BY   H.   O.    HOUGHTON   AND   CO. 


CAMBRIDGE,  MASS.,  U.  S.  A. 


American  Statesmen 

Edited  by  John  T.  Morse,  Jr. 

Each,  i6mo,  cloth,  gilt  top,  $1.25  ;  half  morocco,  $2.50. 
The  set,  31  volumes,  half  levant,  $77.50. 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN.     By  John  T.  Morse,  Jr. 
SAMUEL  ADAMS.     By  James  K.  Hosmer. 
PATRICK  HENRY.     By  Moses  Coit  Tyler. 
GEORGE   WASHINGTON.     By  Henry  Cabot  Lodge. 

2  VOls. 

JOHN  ADAMS.     By  John  T.  Morse,  Jr. 
ALEXANDER  HAMILTON.     By  Henry  Cabot  Lodge. 
GOUVERNEUR  MORRIS.     By  Theodore  Roosevelt. 
JOHN  JAY.     By  George  Pellew. 
JOHN  MARSHALL.     By  Allan  B.  Magruder. 
THOMAS  JEFFERSON.     By  John  T.  Morse,  Jr. 
JAMES  MADISON.     By  Sydney  Howard  Gay. 
ALBERT  GALLATIN.     By  John  Austin  Stevens. 
JAMES  MONROE.     By  President  D.  C.  Gilman. 
JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS.     By  John  T.  Morse,  Jr. 
JOHN  RANDOLPH.     By  Henry  Adams. 
ANDREW  JACKSON.     By  Prof.  William  G.  Sumner. 
MARTIN  VAN  BUREN.     By  Edward  M.  Shepard. 
HENRY  CLAY.     By  Carl  Schurz.     2  vols. 
DANIEL  WEBSTER.     By  Henry  Cabot  Lodge. 
JOHN  C.  CALHOUN.     By  Dr.  H.  Von  Hoist. 
THOMAS  HART  BENTON.     By  Theodore  Roosevelt. 
LEWIS  CASS.     By  Prof.  Andrew  C.  McLaughlin. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.     By  John  T.  Morse,  Jr.    With 

Portrait  and  Map.     2  vols. 

WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD.     By  Thornton  K.  Lothrop. 
SALMON  P.  CHASE.     By  Prof.  A.  B.  Hart. 
CHARLES  FRANCIS  ADAMS.     By  C.  F.  Adams. 
CHARLES  SUMNER.     By  Moorfield  Storey. 
THADDEUS  STEVENS.     By  Samuel  W.  McCall. 


CRITICAL  NOTICES. 


^e  ^as  manaSed  to  condense  the  whole  mass  of 
matter  gleaned  from  all  sources  into  his  volume 
without  losing  in  a  single  sentence  the  freedom  or  lightness  of  his 
style  or  giving  his  book  in  any  part  the  crowded  look  of  an  epitome. 
—  The  Independent  (New  York). 


SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

biography  is  a  piece  of  good  work  —  a  clear  and  simple  presentation 
of  a  noble  man  and  pure  patriot  ;  it  is  written  in  a  spirit  of  candor 
and  humanity.  —  Worcester  Spy, 

TTJJ  7yr>  Y  Pr°fessor  Tyler  has  not  only  made  one  of  the  best 
.  and  most  readable  of  American  biographies  ;  he  may 
fairly  be  said  to  have  reconstructed  the  life  of  Patrick  Henry,  and  to 
have  vindicated  the  memory  of  that  great  man  from  the  unapprecia- 
tive  and  injurious  estimate  which  has  been  placed  upon  it.  —  New 

York  Evening  Post. 

Mr.  Lodge  has  written  an  admirable  bio- 
grapny>  and  one  which  cannot  but  confirm 

the  American  people  in  the  prevailing  estimate  concerning  the  Father 
of  his  Country.  —  New  York  Tribune. 


A  good  piece  of  literary  work-  •  •  • 

erg  the  ground  thoroughly,  and  gives  just 

the  sort  of  simple  and  succinct  account  that  is  wanted.  —  New  York 
Evening  Post. 

IT  A  T(/TTT  TH  A7  ^r>  Lodge  has  done  his  work  with  conscien- 
JIAMIJ^J.  U1V.  tioug  care>  and  the  biography  of  Hamilton  is  a 

book  which  cannot  have  too  many  readers.  It  is  more  than  a  bio 
graphy  ;  it  is  a  study  in  the  science  of  government.  —  St.  Paul  Pioneer 
Press. 

Mr>  Roosevelt  ftas  produced  an  animated  and  in- 
tenseiy  interesting  biographical  volume.  .  .  .  Mr. 
Roosevelt  never  loses  sight  of  the  picturesque  background  of  poli' 
tics,  war-governments,  and  diplomacy.  —  Magazine  of  American  His 
tory  (New  York). 

rv,j  Y  ^  is  an  important  addition  to  the  admirable  series  of 
J-sL  X  .  ,t  American  Statesmen,"  and  elevates  yet  higher  the  charac 
ter  of  a  man  whom  all  American  patriots  most  delight  to  honor.  — 
New  York  Tribune. 

Well  done,  with  simplicity,  clearness,  precision, 
and  jucigment>  and  in  a  spirit  of  moderation  and 
equity.     A  valuable  addition  to  the  series.  —  New  York  Tribune. 


w  i? i? 7?  K>  <?n  AT"  ^  smgularly  Just>  well-proportioned,  and  in- 
y.£  AA.fi/coC/7V.  teresting  sketch  of  the  personal  and  political 
career  of  the  author  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  —  Boston 
Journal. 

The  execution  of  the  work  deserves  the  highest 
praise.  It  is  very  readable,  in  a  bright  and  vigor 
ous  style,  and  is  marked  by  unity  and  consecutiveness  of  plan.  —  The 
Nation  (New  York). 

~  A  j-  Y  A  TYTV  ^  *s  one  °^  *^e  most  carefulty  prepared  of  these 
LrAL,L,Alll\.  very  vaiuable  volumes,  .  .  .  abounding  in  infor 
mation  not  so  readily  accessible  as  is  that  pertaining  to  men  more 
often  treated  by  the  biographer.  —  Boston  Correspondent  Hartford 
Coitrant. 

MHTJPnR  President  Oilman  has  made  the  most  of  his  hero, 
MUlVKUa.  without  the  least  hero-worship,  and  has  done  full 
justice  to  Mr.  Monroe's  "  relations  to  the  public  service  during  half  a 
century."  .  .  .  The  appendix  is  peculiarly  valuable  for  its  synopsis  of 
Monroe's  Presidential  Messages,  and  its  extensive  Bibliography  of 
Monroe  and  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  —  N.  Y.  Christian  Intelligencer. 

vn rfAi  n TTTATC v  AHA M<z  That  Mr-  Morse's  conclusions 
JOHN  QU1JML  Y  AVAMb.  win  in  the  main  be  those  of 

posterity  we  have  very  little  doubt,  and  he  has  set  an  admirable 
example  to  his  coadjutors  in  respect  of  interesting  narrative,  just  pro 
portion,  and  judicial  candor.  —  New  York  Evening  Post. 

The  book  has  been  to  me  intensely  interesting. 
T  ;  .  It  is  rich  }n  new  facts  and  side  ]ightSj  and 

is  worthy  of  its  place  in  the  already  brilliant  series  of  monographs 
on  American  Statesmen.  —  Prof.  MOSES  COIT  TYLER. 

Pr°fessor   Sumner  has  ...  all   in  all,  made  the 
justest  ]ong  estimate  of  Jackson  that  has  had  itself 
put  between  the  covers  of  a  book.  —  New  York  Times. 

VA  A7  7?  TTf?  77  AT"  T^s  absorbing  book.  .  .  .  To  give  any  ade- 
'  quate  idea  of  the  personal  interest  of  the  book, 
or  its  intimate  bearing  on  nearly  the  whole  course  of  our  political 
history,  would  be  equivalent  to  quoting  the  larger  part  of  it.  —  Brook- 
lyn  Eagle. 

r-TA  Y  ^e  have  m  this  ltf£  °f  Henry  Clay  a  biography  of  one  of 
.  the  most-  distinguished  of  American  statesmen,  and  a  po 
litical  history  of  the  United  States  for  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Indeed,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that,  for  the  period 
covered,  we  have  no  other  book  which  equals  or  begins  to  equal  this 
life  of  Henry  Clay  as  an  introduction  to  the  study  of  American  poli 
tics. —  Political  Science  Quarterly  (New  York). 

IV 7? 7?  ^iTffJ?      I*  w^  b£  read  by  students  of  history;  it  will  be 

>^^yt.     invaiuable  as  a  work  of  reference;  it  will  be  an 

authority  as  regards  matters  of  fact  and  criticism ;  it  hits  the  key- 


note  of  Webster's  durable  and  ever-growing  fame  ;  it  is  adequate, 
calm,  impartial  ;  it  is  admirable.  —  Philadelphia  Press. 

Nothing  can  exceed  the  skill  with  which  the  political 
career  0£  the  great  gouth  Carolinian  is  portrayed 
in  these  pages.  .  .  .  The  whole  discussion  in  relation  to  Calhoun's 
position  is  eminently  philosophical  and  just.  —The  Dial  (Chicago). 

n  p  AT'TQ  AT     An  interesting  addition  to  our  political  literature, 
'     and  will  be  of  great  service  if  it  spread  an  admiration 
for  that  austere  public  morality  which  was  one  of  the  marked  charac 
teristics  of  its  chief  figure.  —  The  Epoch  (New  York). 

CA  S"  S1  Pr°fessor  McLaughlin  has  given  us  one  of  the  most  satis- 
'  factory  volumes  in  this  able  and  important  series.  .  .  . 
The  early  life  of  Cass  was  devoted  to  the  Northwest,  and  in  the 
transformation  which  overtook  it  the  work  of  Cass  was  the  work  of 
a  national  statesman.  —  New  York  Times. 

T  TATm  T  AT     As   a  life  of  Lincoln  it  has  no  competitors  ;  as  a 
•LV'     political  .history  of  the  Union  side  during  the  Civil 
War,  it  is  the  most  comprehensive,  and,  in  proportion  to  its  range, 
the  most  compact.  —  Harvard  Graduates'  Magazine. 

077-  TXfAf?T)      The  public  will  be  grateful  for  his  conscientious 
'     efforts  to  write  a  popular  vindication  of  one  of  the 
ablest,  most  brilliant,  fascinating,  energetic,  ambitious,  and  patriotic 
men  in  American  history.  —  New  York  Evening  Post. 

r*TT/i  o  37      His  great  career  as  anti-slavery  leader,  United  States 
Senator,  Governor  of  Ohio,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
and  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States,  is  described  in  an  adequate 
and  effective  manner  by  Professor  Hart. 


CHARLES  FRANCIS  ADAMS.  Cv 


and  the  masterly  ability  and  consummate  diplomatic  skill  displayed 
by  him  while  Minister  to  Great  Britain,  are  judiciously  set  forth  by 
his  eminent  son. 

9  TTMATJi  7?      The  majestic  devotion  of  Sumner  to  the  highest  po- 
uiviwjm.     litical  ideals  before  and  during  his  long  term  of  lofty 
service  to  freedom  in  the  United  States  Senate  is  fittingly  delineated 
by  Mr.  Storey. 

STE  VP1V^     Thaddeus  Stevens  was  unquestionably  one  of  the 
'     most  conspicuous  figures  of  his  time.  .  .  .  The  book 
shows  him  the  eccentric,  fiery,  and  masterful  congressional  leader 
that  he  was.  —  City  and  State  (Philadelphia). 

HOUGHTON,    MIFFLIN   &   CO. 

4  PARK  ST.,  BOSTON  ;  n  EAST  I;TH  ST.,  NEW  YORK; 

378-388  WABASH  AVE.,  CHICAGO. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

RENEWALS  ONLY— TEL.  NO.  642-3405 
This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


AY  2  8  1970  8 


Ji 


N  Sg  197P"8  a 


JJftH  1  0  21 


r7).C7D  58 





0 


T- 


TCF 


m  - 


LD21A-60m-3,'70 
(N5382slO)476-A-32 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


YR  44830' 


-C5-H3' 


X 


